Long term gloom for unemployed

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Nazis routed in Oxford Wing weaknesses. The demon- into contart with the Last week in fact there were two such major landslips. Firstly three economic surveys were published, each of which underlined the certainty of continuing mass unemployment in Britain over ine next rew years. merethanaut fart, tranan And secondly the pound plunged abruptly in the foreign exchange markets, dropping below the $2 mark for the first time in 18 months.

The fall in the value of the pound has a wide range of embarrassing implications for the government-and for those in the CBI who have moaned and groaned continuously that only the artificially high value of the pound was keeping British industry out of world markets.

The last six months has seen the pound fall by 20% against the dollar: in the last few days of last week alone it fell 6%. Yet this is greeted with no enthusiasm by many sections of employers.

They now argue that sterling has fallen in value too fast to give them the opportunity to exploit the relatively lower of British goods in export markets.

It takes time to win new orders-and to turn those orders into finished goods.

Others complain that the fall has been largely against the dollar and not so much against European currencies. This means that imports of raw materials for industry have increased in cost, while the scope for increased sales has been strictly limited.

Oil and chemical firms in particular have complained that this imbalance, combined with the falling ¡price of North Sea oil will squeeze their profits.

Other bosses are worried that with the fall in oil prices and with the glut of oil leading to reduced production, the British balance of payments will lurch into deficit-further weakening the pound and forcing a new round of seige -economy measures.

Indeed there is already speculation that the scale and speed of the most recent drop in the value of sterling will force Thatcher government to scrap further proposed cuts in Minimum Lending Rate-or even increase it again, with ruinous repurcussions in Elsewhere other employers -and workers who remember previous falls in the value of sterling-are looking anxiously towards of Prospect of a new round price inflation as imported goods and raw materials become more and more expensive, giving a new boost to the cost of living.

Why, then, did the pound fall?

The world bankers appear to have responded to a combination of a weakening in North Sea oil prices (BNOC is now cutting its price by $2 a barrel), a continued and apparently neverending slump in the British home economy, and the fall in British interest rates compared to those in Europe and IRA" march in Oxfordshire were thwarted by the largest anti-fascist turnout the county has ever seen.

Fascists from Rugby, Peterborough and : other towns had travelled to Oxford by train and minibus. But even after. picking up support from a handful of local fascists their numbers never rose above 40.

Black youth In contrast about 700 anti-fascists turned out to meet them-including for the first time in the town large numbers of black youth.

A small group of fascists were chased from the town centre and did their friends no favours at all by leading the group of 60 to 70 chasing them to the pub where they were getting up the courage to march.

There, at the Old Gate House, the startled landhis pub-barricaded the doors as he saw large numbers of West Indian the USA.

For Thatcher there is now the agonising dilemma of whether or not to take steps to raise once again the value of sterling by promoting a new round of recession at home: for workers there is only the prospect on the one hand of more inflation, and on the other of more closures, redundancies and speed-up on the shop floor.

This Hobson's choice for workers under capitalism is also illustrated by the latest forecast of the National Institute of Economic and Scientific Research.

It predicts a drop in output of 2.5% this year, meaning a growth in adult unemployment from the present 2½ million to 3 million by the end of 1982. youth approaching.

But such was the anger of the anti-fascists that the pub door was torn off its NIESR forecasts next to no increase in output next year, and points out that employment has fallen much further in the current recession than in the last similar downturn in 1975 but that productivity has fallen relatively far less.

In other words production is being established on a less labour-intensive basis as employers ram through new plans for speed-up and new technology: and as a result any future increase in output is likely to provide jobs for relatively far less additional workers.

The NIESR predicts an average fall in living standards of 1½% during 1981, and no improvement in 1982.

in other words whatever way the Tory government hinges and rocks were hi through the windows:

The fascists fled inte the cellars and upstairs but (or any government committed to capitalist policies) sets out to meet the current crisis, the plight of the working class and particularly the unemployed-can only worsen.

Only the most tenacious action to defend jobs and living standards and prepare generalised strike action to bring down the Tories can create conditions for a genuine alternative.

And within the labour movement there must be a fight for socialist policies of nationalisation of basic industries and banks without compensation under workers' management as the essential basis for a workers' plan to meet the crisis and establish a crash programme of public works to create 3 million jobs. several were caught and given severe beatings. The anti-fascists left but two were arrested betwen the pub and the centre of town.

What the TUC plans 1140 ALAN stration was hijacked by the ANL who provided speaking equipment for the rally and who negotiated endlessiy next, see page VUILALL 12411 fascists.

If they had been dealt with earlier they would not have taken refuge in a pub,

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British Movement plans to launch an "anti-

lord-who thought he had some quiet, nice strangers in

MAY 81 Peoples Marchers in London: