Labour and the Plowden Report

It is in its confused attitude to the aircraft industry that Labour's economic thinking is now shown to be so empty of socialist content, . The Government's response to the Plowden Report indicates this, It is cleczr that the Government will accept the Report's main findings. It will offer no socialist alternative because in all the Labour Party's publications none is presented, The 'best! that British socialists can expect is that the Government will take a 51% shareholding in Hawker-~ Siddeley and B.A.C, airframes. Clearly this is a case of 'state capitalism! by default, What an amazing situation to find that this predominantly Tory Plowden Committee (set up by a Tory Government) which includes the chairman of Tube Investments and managing directors of Shell International and Imperial Metal Industries should come up with as 'radical! a solution as the T.U.C. did in its evidence to Plowden! The T.U.C. will offer no basic opposition to Plowden because, fundamentally, both bodies are on the same side; neither body advocates the nationalisation of the aero-engines side of the aircraft industry. The T.U.C. can says "on the engine side the structure of the industry appears to be reasonably satisfactory" despite the fact that the two main groups, Rolls-Royce and Bristol-Siddeley, are heavily subsidised by the Government. Like Plowden, neither the Labour Party nor the T.U.C. has got anywhere near to working out plans for the aircraft industry which indicate the areas of management where the workers could fulfil their demands for increasing democracy in industry. As for the size of the industry and its composition, military and civil, we have to wait for the "outcome of the Defence Review." We are supposed to wait until we know what Wilson comes up with in the way of 'East of Suez', N.A.T.O. and other policies on his return from Washington. But it would be dangerous for socialists to wait. Socialists cannot accept the formula: the larger the Government's Defence and colonial commitments, the larger the British aircraft industry. Socialists need to pose the alternative to buying U.S. Phantoms, Fllls or British Buccaneers against the arms bill, packing up the bases , and developing hovercraft, air buses and European production, In the meantime, it is not clear that the Government's efforts at economic planning and industrial re-training have done much to lessen the insecurity of aircraft workers. For instance, only last mcnth it was reported that over 1,000 workers at Hawker Siddeley Dynamics missile factories in the Bolton area are threatened with redundancy.