Bonanza for bankers-but watch out for your job

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European currency dealers on the phone PRESS You are now free to buy gold-at £75,000 a bar!

Last week's abolition of all exchange controls relating to the pound sterling was the unexpectedly dramatic last step along a road on which the last Labour government first set out.

It is the road to the ruthless and unrestricted pursuit of capitalist rationality.

The lifting of controls will open the way for capitalists to place their funds in the most profitable place around the world without any restriction imposed by the British state.

The move is a logical part of the whole Tory economic strategy to rescue British capital from its desperate crisis of profitability.

Howe The Thatcher government, however, is approaching that problem in a different way from both the Heath and WilsonCallaghan governments.

Thatcher and Howe are on all sides dismantling the controls which have been often set up to protect particular sections of capital.

They have consciously decided that the long term interests of capital are served by sac rificing the weaker sections of the British capitalist better for ulate : on exchange property to class and by making sure that every avenue to possible profit is open.

It is a strategy which threatens large sections of the working class with loss of jobs both in industry and the public sector.

And at the same time it accepts the elimination of the weaker sections of capital.

Protection

Controls on foreign exchange and capital movements, like controls on imports, are a form of protectionism afforded to a section of capitalists.

Socialists cannot either support or oppose the abolition of such controls as such. We do not involve ourselves in disputes about how best to help the capitalist class.

Socialists must raise a programme which defends the independent interests of the working class.

That means redoubled insistence on the importance of demands such as work sharing on full pay (the sliding scale of hours); occupations and blacking to oppose and prevent closures; nationalisation without compensation of capitalists declaring redundancies and so on.

Central demands

These are central demands of the working class struggle in today's situation of capitalist crisis.

They will become even more important as a result of Howe's lifting of exchange controls in that this will if anything accelerate the ruthless "rationalisation" being carried out by the capitalist class.

So while we recognise that Howe's move is an integral part of the overall viciously anti-working class strategy of the Tory government, we put forward policies which, if fought for consistently throughout the workers' movement, can defend the interests of workers as part of an international struggle for the establishment of socialism.

This is the opposite of the way in which "socialists" of the Labour Party and Communist Party have greeted Howe's measures.

Nationalism

They have almost universally greeted them with a wave of nationalism which has nothing in common with socialism.

The controls shoulc In't have been lifted, they s say, because British capital lists should be forced to ini vest their money in Britain, c teveloping British industry.

To Dennis Healey, 'lefts' and the of the CP, it t is capitalists to sr the British str ock or the Bril tish market tl han engage in the same activities or South Africa.

The positions go hand in hand with the Labour "left" and Stalinist support for import controls as part of a nationalist so-called "Alternative Economic It is a strategy based on an alliance with the national sections of capital and encourages the international division of the working class.

The working class cannot be defended against the adverse effects of Howe's economic strategy by defending the discarded measures of the capitalist state.

But that is what the "lefts" want to do rather than fight for socialist policies.

Of course, a socialist economic programme in Britain or any other state will include state control of foreign trade and finance.

But this has as little in common with capitalist import and exchange controls as truly socialist nationalisation has in common with the state ownership of British Leyland.

The Mail: 'How the Assassin was foiled'.

The Sun: 'Margaret's 'Day of the Jackal', etc...etc...

The stories were identical.

An "IRA man"-(naturally involved in the Mountbatten killing)-had been going to kill the Princess as she opened a car showroom.

Police apparently had his name and photograph, but for some mysterious reason were revealing neither!

The Princess was switched to a bullet-proof Cadillac. A helicopter roared overhead.

Armed guards surrounded her. Hospitals stood by with her blood group at the ready.

The devilish assassin had given himself away by hiring a film crew and then asking them to provide him with a sketch map of the showroom!

Column after column of detail followed. The IRA, Scotland Yard and the RUC all professed themselves ignorant of the roles they were supposed to have played in this drama: but no paper except the Guardian took any notice of their denials.

The next day this ripping yarn began to fali apart at the seams. Agency wires buzzed with denials, climbdowns and accusations of exaggeration.

The FBi said they were investigating "allegations of a threat"' There was little reflection of this climbdown in the papers themselves.

The Telegraph, while conceding that if the mystery assassin was leading Provisional he must be an amateur, concentrated on the continuing security.

Everyone said how brave the Princess was. (Let's not leave the Queen out of this. The Daily Mail reported a death threat from 'the French section of the Provisional IRA' [!] made by a man who said that the IRA didn't actually agree with him!)

So our story has a happy ending.

Our Princess comes home a heroine-unyielding in her determination to open car showrooms whatever the odds.

Once again the press had saved the day.

Press freedom is never having to say you are sorry.