A MAN who helped to lead the Lancashire miners in the 1984/85 strike has been chosen to stand for the Socialist Labour Party in Bolton North-east at the next General Election.

William Kelly, known widely as Billy, who lives in Farnworth, worked in the Lancashire coalfield from the age of 15 and became a colliery electrician.

He has served on the national executive committee of the NUM and is at present general secretary of the Lancashire area of the NUM.

At the constituency meeting which adopted him as a candidate, Mr Kelly said: "At a time when we have the most unpopular Government that I can recall one would expect the main opposition party to be campaigning vigorously against that Government's policies.

"Instead we have the New Labour Party adopting more and more of the same Tory policies that were introduced by Mrs Thatcher and regular announcements of changes both in the constitution of the Labour Party and in the traditional aims for which Labour was founded by the trade unions almost 100 years ago.

"After more than a century of struggle for Socialist ideals and principles, the working people of Britain deserve better than to be treated as mere voting fodder by those who have turned their backs on all the traditional values and aims of the Labour movement and have fully embraced the selfish ideology of the Capitalist system."

Bolton North-east is held by Independent Tory Peter Thurnham. In next year's election fight, Mr Kelly will face opposition from Labour's David Crausby, Liberal Democrat Edmund Critchley and Conservative Robert Wilson.

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