BY TONY HUNT AND JEAN-LOUIS SALFATI
LONDON, England - Leaders of the two main parties here - the ruling Conservatives and the main opposition group, the Labour Party - have begun campaigning for a general election that must be held by May 1997.

In what The Economist has dubbed an "arms-race of authoritarianism," the two parties are competing with each other in pushing for new laws that scapegoat workers and youth for a developing social crisis, give increased powers to the state, and undermine democratic rights.

A massacre in Dunblane, Scotland, in March caused widespread horror among working people. More recently, a youth was convicted for the fatal stabbing last December of head teacher Philip Lawrence outside a school in London. These events and widely reported cases of so-called "disruptive" school children have been exploited by bourgeois politicians. They have sought to portray working people and youth as the source of violence and social breakdown in the decaying capitalist system.

On March 13, Thomas Hamilton walked into a primary school in Dunblane carrying four legally held handguns and opened fire, slaughtering 16 children and their teacher. He then shot himself. These violent acts prompted liberal newspapers such as The Independent to call for gun control as the way to prevent a repeat of this tragedy.

In Scotland, a campaign called Snowdrop was formed involving the parents of the children killed at Dunblane. It called for a total handgun ban. With financial backing from local businesses and assistance from a Labour Member of Parliament (MP), Snowdrop collected 705,000 signatures on petitions through tables in "every large Scottish town," according to the Sunday Telegraph. Snowdrop leaders, met separately with government ministers and Labour leader Anthony Blair when they delivered the petitions to parliament. The main Snowdrop spokesperson Anne Pearston, a former accountant, told the Sunday Telegraph, "There is too much violence in society." She was invited to speak at the Labour Party Conference.

In response, Conservative Home Secretary Michael Howard published proposed laws, November 1, which he described as "some of the toughest gun control laws in the world." The proposals call for banning all handguns above .22 caliber. This would mean the destruction of 160,000 of the 200,000 legally held handguns in Great Britain. Smaller caliber sporting weapons will be restricted to licensed clubs. These proposals went beyond the recommendations of Judge William Cullen in a report on Dunblane commissioned by the government. Banning guns and knives
Pearston and the leadership of the Labour party and the Liberal-Democrats have opposed Howard's proposals as not tough enough and called for a total handgun ban. Labour spokesperson George Robertson said, "There is no place in any decent civilized society for any kind of handguns." Robertson, however, failed to mention the firepower held by Britain's police or its occupation forces in Northern Ireland.

Underlying divisions in the ruling party have come to the surface on this issue threatening its parliamentary majority. Several conservative MPs have opposed the government and supported a total ban. They include former cabinet minister David Mellor. Writing in The Guardian, another liberal daily, Mellor called for an end to "the growth of an American past- time." Right-wing Tories have attacked the government for different reasons. In the summer, a Conservative dominated parliamentary committee had opposed any ban. Right-wing MP John Carlisle accused the Home Secretary of "panic" and the Dunblane relatives of "hysteria."

The October 17 conviction of 16-year-old Learco Chindamo for the killing of Philip Lawrence allowed electioneering politicians to add knife control to their shopping lists of increased powers. The murdered teacher's wife, Frances Lawrence, published a "manifesto" in The Times calling for a "movement" to end "violence and encourage civic values." She also called for a "higher status" in society for teachers and police, an end to the government's "neutrality" on the concept of the family, an emphasis in teaching "effort, earnestness and excellence," and a "ban on the sale of combat knives" and "closure of the shops" that sell them.

"Parties rush to join the new moral crusade" was how the Independent described the reaction to the Lawrence manifesto. The paper spoke of a "campaign led by Mrs Lawrence to tackle lawlessness among young people."

Labour leader Anthony Blair said that Lawrence "has done a real service to the country." His deputy, John Prescott, called for a "crusade" against combat knifes and attacked the government for not proposing new laws. "We'll work with the government," Prescott declared.

The jailing of a worker on October 31 showed who the real target of these measures is. Dean Payne, 26, was sentenced to two weeks in prison for carrying work knives in his car. He was the first person prosecuted under the Offensive Weapons Act, passed after the Lawrence killing last year. Workers are the real target
Payne is a casual [temporary] worker at a newspaper distribution depot where he was required to bring his own tools for the job. The judge said there was "no evidence" that Payne had the knives for "offensive purposes" but sent him to jail anyway. The judge's action was publicly praised by Olga Maitland, a right-wing Conservative MP.

The proposed new "Crime Bill" includes a "two strikes and you're out" clause under which defendants are given automatic life sentences. It also calls for abolition of parole and automatic early release for prisoners, and mandatory minimum sentences. As the number of inmates is expected to increase sharply, the government also plans to build 12 new prisons.

A "Police Bill" published November 1 aims to set up a new cop squad with more than 1,400 detectives and an annual budget of 90 million (US$148 million). The squad will be given greater powers than other police units to enter properties and electronically monitor conversations. The Bill also aims to create a criminal records agency that would provide vetting of convictions and certificates for prospective employees to verify if they have a clean record. While some judges have expressed opposition to these measures, the Labour Party has indicated it will support them.

Editorials in capitalist newspapers have reflected the divided opinion in ruling circles on the effectiveness of these "morality" campaigns and an uncertainty that attacks on democratic rights can be carried out without triggering working- class resistance. The right-wing Daily Telegraph attacked the proposed new gun-controls as "gesture politics" and the debate over them as "demagogic."

"Today, it is social rather than industrial relations that have gone awry" the Telegraph said. It urged the government to accelerate cuts on the social wage and encourage "traditional families" and the "institution of marriage." The real problem, according to The Telegraph, is "moral relativism," "single- parent households," and the "rights culture of the 60s and 70s."  
 
 
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