the proposals for a new socialist youth organisation outlined in the Guardian of November 16 came as no surprise to those who have seen the changing mood of the Labour Party in its attitude to youth accelerated since the result of the general election. (What would have happened had we accidentally won?) Some of the probable changes were, until recently, regarded as unobtainable even by the extreme left of the Labour Youth Movement. Nevertheless, the prejudices aired by Quair in the Labour Organiser after Dennis Potter’s letter to the Times, cannot stand up against the social changes implicit in the welfare-state-cum-H-bomb age which gave rise to the New Left.
The immediate success of the Manchester Left Club must have its lessons, particularly in an area where the few surviving Youth Sections are ineffectual shadows of their former selves. The image of our ageing body of veterans, shedding 75,000 supporters each year, and carrying high slogans which are becoming increasingly irrelevant to those who were born since the thirties, is reflected in the mirrors of the Labour Committee Rooms. The appeal to the mind rather than to the stomach is regrettable to some comrades, but it is the only appeal which is meeting with any success today, in terms of active participation in politics.