ABSTRACT
The new movement has sprouted out of the crevices of the working-class movement, at the points where new pressures have arisen in conflict with the traditional ideas of labourism. Black people, women, socialist trade unionists, inner city tenants: these are some of the forces, disillusioned with Labour government and parliament, which have begun to organize on the edge of mainstream politics. The manifesto of the team was first presented publicly at a conference on social deprivation and change in education held in York in April 1972. The experience of the rent strike and then the local election campaign had brought together a hard core of militants, 10 to 15 strong, with whom our team was involved in a continuing discussion about the politics of education. In its desperation to appeal to all the deprived categories red-lined by the Russell Report, adult education has frequently fallen foul of the vacuous gimmickry of much that passes for ‘community education’.
