nations THIS WEEK saw the publication of facts which give the most vivid picture SO far of the political strategy of the Thatcher government. They were tucked away in the seemingly obscure figures of the Department of Employment job census suppressed for a year by the Tories, but now leaked in the Observer last Sunday.
The scenario revealed staggering in its clarity. figures show that a total 1,546,000 jobs have been lost in Britain since Thatcher came power. But only six per them have been lost southern part of England: South East, South West, and East Anglia. These counties have lost a ACTION - Scotland, was housing, social The of cent of tive to in the wages have the total of only only 89,000 jobs.
Outside the southern triangle Wales, the North, North West, the East and West tailed Midlands - have lost 94 per cent of all the jobs that have gone. That is over 1.4 million jobs. two.
These unemployment figures confirm what was already known ple. from every other index: on pay, services. The policy of the Thatcher govern- ty, ment has been to increase every type of differential in society.
Youth wages have fallen relaadult wages. fallen relative to men's. The differentials in pay between black and white workers have increased. The gap between two unskilled and skilled workers has widened.
Now these new and most deunemployment show just how the dole queue has been used to cut the country in Thatcher's goal has been simShe has tried to create a relatively privileged, highly paid, relatively secure section of socie including a section • working supporting Tories and concentrated in the south of the country. And she has financed a large police force to baton the rest of the country into submission. That has been Thatcher's answer for the inner-cities, for the north, for the black com• • • Labour students China munity, for women workers, for the unemployed. She has sought to organise the haves against the figures have-nots.
The strategy movement in 1987 - and every year clearly understanding that. It must start by organising the most direct victims of Thatcher's assault: the unemployed, the north, the black of the community, the women, the Irish - all those sections of the struggle with Thatcher.
It must build on that to create a unity of the Even those sections of the working class which have done best • Democracy demonstrations in of the labour flows since inner-cities, millan.
working in working offensive.
strategy. under the Tory government are still affected by the crisis and by the attacks which are gripping the whole of British society.
But Labour must do this on a clear basis. Not by a vain attempt to recreate the 'one nationism' for which the economic basis has long passed - like Neil Kinnock's recent ridiculous praise for the Tory 'one nationism' of MacLabour should have its own -very different - two nations. The two nations of labour and capital. Those are the two nations whose reality is so graphically revealed in the figures published this week That is the basis for socialist
Socialist Action 9 Jan 1987