country are bleak, and yet, eight and a half million people or more voted for our manifesto. Eight and a half million is a bedrock of support upon which we can build.
That manifesto, worked out bv the trade union and labour movement over decade MOTE minimum programme. believe that as the months go by, the relevance of what we said will become apparent, like a prophecy against which we can judge our own experience.
We achieved that vote against the most powertul assault ироп our that we have seen probably since 1931. My friends, we have five tasks to perform.
FIRST we must protect our own people, outside as well as inside parliament.
We were set up as a movement to defend, to be guardians, to protect.
And these tasks will still be WE MUST face the fact that the prospects for this not have single member in the House of Commons.
That task of protection is a continuing task. We can't say 'we'll wait till the next election when everyWe have to do it here and now protect the young and the old and the disabled and the sick, and to protect the peace.
With a hostile media it is increasingly important we give priority to getting our message across to our people. If you look at the public opinion polls they never published went through them all with great you will find month after month the British people, asked for their WICH judgement on the policies of the Labour Party confirmed them time again.
More should be spend on health, COIS We should look after the public services. The press didn't publish because, media, they want to keep us in isolation in our own nomes, not alowing Us 1O know widely were the teelines that each of us had about the way society should be run.
THE SECOND task is to build a mass party. I don't know if it was the exUCHICHEC ot evervone. but it certainly was in Bristol East. We've never had so AL kids. working mum is 'a disgrace to the many people coming to help. We've had people, we ve steel Wales.
in other areas. So we must socialism the union movement because nobody should take for granted that the unionists who read the Sun will see the connection between their work and the work of the We campaign with the women's movement. A majority of our people, in the front line, are suffering heavily from what is happening, being driven back to the home. wny. In order to take on the tasks the welfare state notorious in the past for his defence of page 3 pinthe Yorkshire uus Miner and a debilitating blind spot rights liberation. was to perform, and to do it without pay.
We must work with the peace movement, ethnic communities.
Non-political movements are a dead end. You cannot have nonpolitical trade unionism, NALGO has demonstrated with brilliant campaign 'Put reople rIrsl cannot have non-political peace movement or a non-political These movements are all part of an unfair • society.
and it must be an alliance section or another of the front line how unfair our society is.
THIRD, we must be a campaigning party. We MISI campaign on the issues that touch the must raise ple deeply. pectations. of the things that amazes me is the apparent success of the Prime Minister the Cabinet in persuading peo. ple that to want full emolovment makes vou an extremist. To want a decent health service makes you an extremist We very rich country: we are the oldest industrial country. We must raise the expectations of the voung It is not unreasonable, with a thousand years of coal and fifty years oI Oll, people hould look forward to work, decelt home, o retirement and health, dignity peace.
In order to do that we must rebuild hopes, put democracy, civil liber, socialism, and internationalism back at the top of the agenda of our society.
FOURTH, we our party together, the together. There very urgent tasks to perform. Of course, we must learn the lessons of the past. We must do that, and see that we do not make the same mistakes again.
I believe that I speak for a very large number of people, today, in the morrow of a defeat, in saying there is no room for personal bitterness recKandi that desire for us to be united strong, face this challenge is the dominant thought in Outl minds at this moment.
movement.
, finally, we MISE • than we had fort put during the decade • '30s laid th mous victory of 1945 entering troubled times. be certain that this ment, its parliadespair LESSICS which will have brought hearts ple.
we beacon of hope, for the hope for older hope fo younger respon