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Vacal ncies down, unemployed figures up: Tory policies are starting to work!

The December figures révealed the way in which the decline in the British economy brought about by Thatcher's economic strategy is now. definitely beginning to create the long-predicted rise in unemployment.

The government itself| predicts an increase " in unemployed of 300,000 in. the next year-and with closures and public sector cutbacks continuing their breakneck course in every part of the countrythere is reason to believe this is an underestimate.

While dole queues lengthen, inflation in' Britain at. 17.4% continues to outstrip even the comparatively high level of wage settlements being achieved by many sectors.

But a major factor holding back the wages struggle appears to be the refusal of reformist union leaders to confront employers who plead "bankruptcy"

The CBI claims that in a recent survey of firms, two-thirds said that they had been able to pressurise pay settlements downwards by referring to their profit figures in negotiations. In other words union officials all over the country are starting not from defence of the independent interests and living standards of their members, but from the supposed problems of the employers.

There will certainly be no shortage of such problems over next year. One forecast anticipates a staggering 30% drop in industrial and commercial profits in 1980.

Thatcher Does this mean that these reformist union leaders are going to recommend wage reductions to their members? It is plainly impossible simply to continue pressing for piecemeal improvements in a system which: can be seen to be throwing the development of the productive forces into reverse.

Either policies must be devised to defend the gains and independent interests of the working class-through action leading to the defeat of the Tory government, the nationalisation of basic industry and the banks without compensation under workers management and the establishment of a planned ancialist economy-nt uninni officials must become even TWILLE WUss тоге а secondary arm of management in forcing through up on the shop floor. Act were followed up by raids in Belfast which brought the arrest of Provisional Sinn Fein vice-president Gerry Adams.

Only last year, Adams was held without trial for seven months on a charge of membership of the IRA, until a judge finally ruled that there was "insufficient evidence" to proceed with the charge.

This time he was held for three days' interrogation before being released without charge on January Meanwhile a campaign has been launched by the RCG paper Hands Off Ireland to publicise the police violence against Val Greene, one of the 18 arrested in the pre-Christmas raids in London, Manchester, Birmingham, Southampton child Liverpool.

Greene was allegedly arrested for the "crime" of giving food and shelter to The fight for the immediate withdrawal of British troops from Ireland must be linked in the British workers movement to the struggle against the PTA.

Last weekend saw more harassment of anti-imperialists, when three Hands Off Ireland sellers were arrested in Bristol town centre and held for seven hours before being released, charged with "wilful obstruction".

They had been selling on a spot where sales of left-wing literature have been established for many years. On the same day police in London broke up a peaceful Hands Off Ireland meeting in Kilburn Square.

Protest meetings have been called for Saturday 12 January. 12.00 Kilburn Square, Kilburn High Road, London.

2.00 St. James Barton Roundabout, Nr. Marlborough St. Bus Station, Bristol: