2.2 MILLION officially unemployed, and rising: the rigid Tory squeeze on the economy has brought 3,000 redundancies a day since John Major took over as Prime Minister.
Latest figures predict jobless totals topping three million: in fact they are probably already this high. But Chancellor Norman Lamont declares this toll of misery to be "a price worth paying".
The Tories are desperately struggling to market Major as a 'caring' alternative to Thatcher; but it's not just the recession that reminds us that most of her policies are still in place, along with the ministers who helped force them in. The evidence is all around us.
CHAOS in the NHS, and deepening: the havoc caused by Thatcher's dogmatic insistence on applying 'market methods is provoking a new round of cuts and unprecedented redundancies More than 100 more hospitals are queuing up to 'opt out, while health care drowns in a tide of bureaucracy and waiting lists rise inexorably. Health Secretary William Waldegrave, backed by Major, insists that he will not bail out hospitals that go bust or relent on the highly unpopular 'reforms'.
ANGER in households across the country as bills for the Poll Tax that Major and Michael Heseltine claim to have scrapped drop through letter boxes. Even Heseltine is now panicked by the prospect that without an extra £4 billion subsidy, an election next year could take place under the shadow of a third year of Poll Tax bills.
MISERY in the schools, where despite the failure of the first effort, Education Secretary Kenneth Clarke still insists that seven year-olds must be put through the agony of 'testing' to satisfy more Thatcherite prejudices. Meanwhile Tory Poll Tax capping and other restrictions have cut school and college budgets to the bone.
INCREDULITY among British Rail travellers and commuters on hearing Transport Secretary Malcolm Rifkind's vague pledges to improve railways. Even as he spoke BR was finalising plans to close down key sections of its freight services, and Lamont was restating the need for economic restraint.
Major may be attempting to don the mask of moderation, but his policies are stuck in the Thatcherite groove. His last best hope of electoral survival hinges on the weakness of Labour's response.
There's not only the problem of a Labour programme that offers less radical reforms than any time in the Party's history: there is a problem of credibility. Each time Kinnock and his Shadows preface their timid proposals for reforms with 'responsible promises that spending will depend upon economic growth, more voters begin to wonder if anything would really change under a Labour government.
To make sure things do change, we must not wait for the General Election. We must step up the struggles now against every aspect of 'Matcherism', and use the summer's union conferences and every other labour movement arena to develop fighting policies spelling out socialist demands on a Labour government.
Patten's panic - see page 3 Liverpool - p 3 Attacks on rights - p 5 • India after Gandhi - p 6 • Yugoslavia - the end? -p 8/9 • Ken Loach on Scargill - p 11
Home News