January 9. The emergence of a thriving labour movement and the

benefits that this brought in terms of housing, education, health, and

welfare, as well as material improvements, to the working people of

Scotland and the rest of the UK rested on a very few simple pretexts --

the struggle of one was the struggle of all; picket lines must never be

crossed; blacked cargoes remain unmoved; the bosses must always be

assumed to be lying; you never scab on a brother worker; you never treat

with the Tories.

Every single one of these inviolable conditions for labour success was

broken by the Ravenscraig men in their misguided attachment to Labourist

leadership during the late miners' strike.

They were not alone -- railmen, haulage drivers, dockworkers, all

scabbed on the miners.

Those of us who tried to explain the lessons of labour history were

howled down at Labour Party meetings by the careerist quislings of the

New Model Labour Party in their (soon to be) vain attempt to gain credit

in English Tory yuppieland.

The people of Scotland have been betrayed, not by the Tories, who

promise nothing and give nothing (although they surely taketh away), but

by Labour politicians who mislead workers into thinking that the

hard-won gains of their fathers were guaranteed by an attachment to

Westminster.

When Mrs Thatcher waged war on the Labour movement by proxy against

the miners, real labour leadership urged united resistance.

Ravenscraig was finished the day Mrs Thatcher beat the miners with the

kind assistance of the Ravenscraig workforce.

The spoils of war have been divided; Scottish industry is dead; and

the Labourists have their safe seats.

John J. O'Dowd,

23 Riverbank Drive,

Mossend,

Bellshill.