unity
Communists at the TUC
Tuesday 15 September 2009
Unless Labour’s government policies change the 2010 TUC will be debating an even worse crisis – with a Tory government in office by John Foster Are we on the road to economic recovery – as Alastair Darling and much of the press would like us to believe? The answer is almost certainly no. The only thing that has shown slight signs of revival is the City of London’s appetite for speculation – in the stock exchange, commodities, takeovers and at the millionaire end of the residential property market. But the real economy continues to sink disastrously. Manufacturing output is now 18 per cent lower than it was in 2005 and its employment has
fallen by 7.4 per cent in the last year – the biggest fall since the 1930s. The most recent figures show this trend is continuing into the third quarter of 2009. For the economy as a whole the picture is no better. The government’s claimant count figure minimises real unemployment. But even this shows a massive jump from 872,000 to 1,582,000 in just twelve months. However, the figures that really reveal the dire state of economy are those for business investment. The second quarter of 2009 is 18.4 per cent lower than that the year before – itself at a historical low. Engineering is 24 per cent down. Even
service sectors like retail and hotels are badly down. All this bears out the argument of Professor Wade of the London School of Economics in the July issue of the Cambridge Journal of Economics. This is that the much talked-up recovery of
summer 2009 is simply a temporary stabilisation. He sees it as a ‘high probability’ that 2010 will witness a further downturn, across the US, Europe and not just in Britain, and that this in turn will result in a further round of banking crises. continued on page 4
TODAY! 12.45pm Room 3b, BT Convention Centre
Trade unions fighting back Speakers: Brian Caton POA; Bob Crow RMT; Anita Halpin NUJ; Len Bayliss and Len McLusky of Unite. Chair: John Haylett Morning Star political editor