In this article published in Militant in February 1979, a few months before Margaret Thatcher’s victory in the General Election, Ted Grant highlighted the root causes of the decline of British capitalism and the need for British capitalists to strike a blow to the workers’ rights and conditions. He exposed the failure of the reformist policies of the right-wing Labour leaders who in the three years of the Social Contract gave the capitalists a bonanza of profits while not guaranteeing any improvement for the workers. The hysterical campaign by the capitalist media against the unionised workers was an indication of the big class battles to come.