October 19, 1985 tion of, primarily, the unskilled and immobile poor.
Successive governments have promoted this movement of capital by both industrial and residential planning. Although in recent years, 'regional policy' has offered grants to businesses to locate in "depressed regions' (the North-East, Scotland, South Wales), these have had little effect, and have in any case been completely offset by government purchasing policies, notably in the huge defence sector, which is concentrated in the prosperous South-East. (Defence orders have run annually at ten times the level of regional aid.) The present government has now almost abandoned regional policy, putting its faith instead in a mostly exhortatory attempt to stimulate small business and self-employment in a de-regulated market. The effect on inner-city unemployment has been minimal. In Brixton, the giant US multinational British American Tobacco has helped to fund a small business Enterprise Centre', in a late attempt to foster a Black middle class. It has not been a success.
