Strikes Not Votes Needed to Kick Ou1 Thatcher

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Socialist Press Fund, BM Box 5277, London WC1V 6XX Speeding away in an egg-proof car: Thatcher As Tory right winger Teddy Taylor scraped home by the skin of his teeth in the formerly "safe" seat of Southend last week, it was clear that Thatcher's government is whipping up more hostility and faster than her ill-fated predecessor Edward Heath.

Taylor suffered the humiliation of seeing a 10,774 majority transformed into one of only 430 in a by-election which he won with only barely over a third of the votes cast.

With Sir Keith Joseph still sponging assorted foodstuffs off his suit after his uncomfortable visit to South Wales, Thatcher herself took care to offer only a distant and fast-moving target for egg-throwers during her flying visit to Yorkshire and Humberside.

Sneaking around by side roads and back entrances, and protected by a wall of 500 police at Selby coalfield, Thatcher remained unharmed. But a group of steelworkers' wives narrowly missed her speeding car in Howden, and in Hull, too, there was an impromptu attempt by a crowd of over 200 to make an omlette on her windscreen on Thatcher herself.

Meanwhile the seething anger at Tory policies found a reflection even in the House of Lords, where government proposals to introduce sweeping charges for school transport were thrown out in a surprising 2-1 vote.

Bitterness While the revolt on this question was led by Tory peers -and will no doubt lead simply to further cuts on other aspects of education spending-it is in part an outcome of the bitterness among workers and middle class families in rural districts, who would face crippling transport charges for sending their children to school.

But this small setback inflicted on the Tory's strategy of cuts-costing 'only £20-£30 million nationally-will do little if anything to stem the growing tide of opposition to government policies.

Indeed the latest official figures on retail price inflation -showing a 19.1% annual risé in prices, with more to comegrossly understate the impact of Tory policies and the capitalist crisis on the working class.

Not only is inflation still accelerating upwards-with higher prices for milk, petrol, beer, coal, rates, counch rents, gas, electricity, and prescriptions still to come in the next two months-but the average figure contains some much steeper increases.

Housing costs for instance have risen by 26.8% over the last 12 months mainly as a result of the soaring mortgage tate. Transport and vehicle costs have gone up by 23.7%. The overall figure is lower than 20% largely because food prices have gone up by only 12.8%-a result of the mild winter.

Another factor concealed by the figures for retail price increases is that raw material prices are now going up twice as fast as those of finished commodities-at an annual rate of around 40%.

Fall in profits

This rapid increase brings with it a fall in profits for manufacturers-who will continue to respond by "rationalising" production, bringing closures, sackings and speed-up on the shop floor.

Unemployment-already on course for 2 million next winter will receive a further boost, at a time when there is speculation that Howe's budget will attempt to cut dole payments and other benefits for the first time since the 1930s.

These policies are not arbitrary spite on the Tories' behalf: they flow from the world-wide crisis of capitalisman anarchic system that rests not on production for social need but on the accumulation of profit.

FUND-keep in order to sustain our paper.

laurels.

This is why even as millions of workers face a future of unemployment, exploitation and poverty the major banks are reporting record profits and BP can announce quadrupled profits on last year's figures.

It is no use looking to Southend or other by-elections as an answer to Thatcher: and if she is allowed to continue on course for four more years the latest Cambridge Policy Review forecasts 3½ million unemployed!

is £358.30 so we not rest on our The answer must be to fight throughout the labour movement for general strike action to defeat this government and create conditions to drive out Labour's right wing leadership.

Only a genuine workers' government, carrying out a socialist programme based on nationalisation of banks and industry without compensation under workers' management, can offer a real alternative to Tory destruction. sacrificed major success.

An undeformed wokers state would of course inally