guide to the cost of living. For example, last month the Index rose Dy 1.3 per cent. But according to the Financial Times, grocery prices rose in the same month by 3 per cent. And grocery prices are a much truer reflection of the rate of inflation for working people than any other statistical estimate.
A significant increase in industrial growth was the means by which Healey and friends promised to take us all out of the iconomic wilderness. In July this year he predicted an increase in ss domestic product (the amount of finished goods produced a 4.5 per cent in the coming eighteen months. Even now, only ree months later, that figure is being revised. The reason is that om June to August industrial output actually fell by 1.5 per cant. Denis has got it wrong yet again.
THE WEALTHY The 1974 Labour Manifesto included the promise that Labour would introduce a 'wealth tax' — designed to fulfil Denis Healey's diction that he would 'squeeze the rich until the pips squeak". n coming to office that plan mittee of MPs could study the vexed question. Considering That there were Tories on this body, it was hardly surprising when a broke up in disagreement at the end of 1975.
Little mention has been made of this wealth tax since. But in the Financial Times last week it was divulged that it 'is expected to be quietly dropped from the next parliamentary session'. So if you haven't noticed any rich pips squeaking lately, now you know The huge scale of the cuts in government expenditure have been detailed many times. Let us just take one example - the construction industry. In August of this year orders placed in astrucuon te wy to per cent om me previous montn. inis will only increase the already heavy unemployment in the building Indust ook where this fall is concentrated. Not in the homes of wear was postponed until a select WAGES And then there is wages. The simple statistics speak for themselves. Average earnings this year have increased at an annual rate of approximately 9 per cent. Even the Retail Price Index says that the cost of living is rising at 13 per cent. And that's only this Next year, says the Economist, 'with inflation rising towards an annual 14 per cent, the 5 per cent wage maximum will mean a 10 per cent drop in many ordinary workers post-tax standard of living'. No wonder Samuel Brittan commented in the Financial *Britain has become one countries in the industrial world .... between Britain and other similar countries is now so great that one might normally expect a torrent of overseas capital to take avantace oi chead bruisn labour The wages of Labour are slight indeed.
NORTH SEA OIL but all ur troubles, so we are told, will soon be over. At the last moment the cavalry will worse than death. The form this particular cavalry takes is North Sea oil. The problem with that particular cavalry is who owns it and who controls it Despite all Tony Benn's blather about state control of the North Sea resources, an estimate in Labour Research indicates that by 1980 only five per cent of North Sea oil production will be owned by the state directly. Anther 17 per cent will be owned by British Petroleum in waicn mne Government nas a majorit nolding. But all the rest will be owned and controlled by the "uis coes not mean inar nonn sea oir will nave no effect ne most optimistic prophecy is that in four years time, Britain will have earned £5.4 bilion from the oil. But already Britain owes £6 billion to overseas agencies and bankers. and there is another Çf billion in debt in sterling balances. Then there is the £3.9 billion loan the IMF is expected to cough up. North Sea oil will certainly prove a bonanza, but as tar as brusn workers are concerned if will not be their bonanza.
How can the once proud, strong, and sterling British pound be subject to the whims of newspaper writers or the sabre rattling of a Labour NEC which the Callaghan Government has repeatedly said it will ignore anyway?
For an explanation, quotation from the Financial Times of 25 October: If the government puts confidence first and aritmetic second it will be on the way to sounder policies.
So it is all a question of 'confidence' When the Labour NEC blusters there is panic. When a speculative news story makes prophecies of decline there is panic. It is all a question of "confidence".
To get Times had the Labour - that a further new own demands ensuring 1. WAGES or une aw low wace Indeed, the wage disparity arrive to save Britain from a fate same amount.
scale.
sharenot control.
What, you may well ask, was going on?
old Britain anymore.
There are begin with this Heath Governmentthis defeat.
policies. aejeat ine working class.
British capitalism has left.
- ine working class -elderly and the underprivileged.
as lunatic as the system itself.