from a Nottingham reader
"An attack on the whole trade union movement", In these words, George Perry M.P., "one of the few Labour MPs of the new intake who have ever soiled their hands to get a living", characterised the Government's Prices and Incomes Act, when describing the fight put up in committee by himself and Frank Cousins, during the consideration of the Bill. When he was threatened by the whips for his stand on this measure, Mr. Perry refuted the claim that Incomes Policy was not a matter of conscience. "T can't think of any other issue that would affect my conscience so strongly", he said. George Perry was speaking to an audience of about 50 people who were attending the inaugural session of the Nottingham Centre for Socialist Education last Friday, With him on the platform were the regional organisers of NUPE, ASSET and the T&GWU, Ernie Roberts of the AEU and Ken Coates of CSE, Speaking for ASSET, George Smith, a lifelong trade unionist, said of the Act,
"it is a complete and total betrayal of everything that socialists believe in." He went on to say that he fully supported the educational work of CSE, which was vitally necessary to the future of socialism, Ernie Roberts showed in detail how unjust the distributian of income is in Britain, and argued
strongly for redistribution between the shares falling to capital and labour,
over/
Nottingham CSE Meeting on Prices. and Incomes Act continued "Don't argue among ourselves about the 40%", he said: "What matters is the 60% we never see." Ken Coates said that the attacks on trade union freedom involved in the Act were only the beginning, and cited the Scamp Report on the car industry as evidence of strong forthcoming attacks on shop stewards. He attacked the offensive against so-called "restrictive practices", which often represent elements of workers' control that needed expansion, not contraction. Ray Thorpe, of the T&GWU, explained his union's policy, stressing that it was completely untrue to say that the unions were unwilling to protect the low-paid, He pointed to Frank Cousins' case for the £15 minimum wage, and showed how unjust some recent settlements for low paid wages had been. Bernard Savage, a leading NUM militant, drew attention to the Government's attacks on the mining industry, and a useful discussion developed on the problems of socialist fuel policy in particular and defence against capitalist "rationalisation" in general, It is obvious that CSE in Nottingham will fill a real need in the life of the Labour movement. The Spring programme of fortnightly meetings will include discussions on poverty, on Vietnam, on the future of Labour's Left, East of Suez policy, and a number of other topics, An encouraging thing about the inaugural panel-meeting was the high ratio of trade union activists in attendance,