Tory medicine ling patient. g pet Benn renews call for

Scan page 5

even some arch-Thatcherites wonder where their policies are leading British capitalism.

Inflation roared ahead to 18.4%-before many additional increases in rents, rates, fuel prices, public sector charges and other commodity prices make themselves felt.

Material costs

It is now certain 'that the 20% inflation rate will be reached before the summer-at which point of course the anniversary of the colossal round of price increases unleashed by the Tories in their first budget will begin to distort the comparative year-on-year figures.

Another ill omen for the Tories however is the soaring cost of fuel and raw materials now hitting manufacturing industry-bringing the largest January increases since 1977.

Material costs-led of course by fuel and ol-rose by a staggering 27.3% in the 12 months to January 1980. And to prevent an estimated £296 million trade deficit for the month of January.

And while imports of manufactured goods fell last month, this seems to be less the result of competition from British firms than the outcome of a slump in demand for goods from both home and abroad.

The estimated trading deficit for 1979 is now put at a massive £2.5 billion, with a further £2 billion deficit predicted for 1980..

As the icy winds of the world recession begin to make themselves felt, sections of Tories must be looking in uncertainty at Thatcher's relentless policy of stripping aside the protection swathed around British capitalism by the WilsonCallaghan government.

The now largely naked creature seems in imminent danger of death from exposure.

For workers, the solution involves swift mass action to put it out of its misery, and to carry " through measures of socialist expropriation and the establishment of a planned, nationalised economy.

The Thatcher government in a curious aboutturn has now emerged as a leading defender of protectionist measures-to curb imports of cheap US-made man-made fibres.

The Tories last week got agreement from the European Commission to impose quotas . on sales of US polyester filament yarn and nylon carpet yarn.

Quotas on a third category -tutted and nylon carpets•werè ruled out by the Commission.

This move towards trade war arises from the fact that US manufacturers are able to utilise subsidised petro-chemical raw materials-and are wiping out profits in whole areas of the European fibre industry, which is expected to lose £500 million this year.

But at the same time US employers are demanding protectionist measures to keep cheaper European steel out of the American market.

In Britain the CBI at its 1979 conference swung in support of a policy of import controls, flying at that point in the face of the Tory government. But now the growing tensions of the crisis are driving capitalists in every country to seek ways of defending their profits against their competitors.

It is therefore particularly ironic that last week should also have seen Labour lefts' including Tony Benn, Norman Atkinson, Leslie Huckfield and Stuart Holland table an early day motion in Parliament calling on the Tories to impose import controls to prevent further penetration of the British car market.

The answer to the crisis now facing the British car industry does not lie in joining hands with "our" employers and managers in a fight to keep out "foreign" cars.

Classic example

Such a policy does nothing to defend jobs or working conditions in British plants-where BL is the classic example of class collaboration leading to closures.

Instead, by seeking to export, unemployment to Europe, Japan or elsewhere, it simply divides the international working class along national lines and assists the tub thumping "patriotic" campaigning of the Tory government.

The only way forward is through an independent policy, whereby - the working class PHOTO: Chris Davies, Report Benn refuses to carry the cost of the crisis, and fights through strike action occupations - to defend all jobs, to divide the work available without loss of pay, and to create conditions for the nationalisation of major industry and the banks without compensation under workers management.