AMID the words of anger at the mass rally protesting at the loss of 550 jobs and closure of the former Lucas Rists works in Accrington, there will be much understanding for the sentiment expressed by Hyndburn MP Greg Pope over the shutdown stemming from the factory's new German owners, Leoni, switching its work to Romania.

Companies cannot be allowed, he said, to walk in, take our order books, shut down our firms and transfer business to countries which pay pittance wages.

But such is the harsh reality of the unbridled and ruthless world of global business that it is not only allowed, but is encouraged by the demands of profit and competition.

Yet if neither the actuality nor the principle are of any comfort to workers who are the victims of these inexorable forces, perhaps a less futile response is to be found in the demand buried amid the fury over the Leoni affair uttered at the rally by the GMB union's regional organiser, Gary Jones. To the concern of both Mr Pope and Hyndburn Council leader Peter Britcliffe that the issue was being politicised, he was pledging that the union would withdraw its cash support for the Labour Party until the government bucked up its ideas and started acting to save jobs in East Lancashire.

Politicised or not, if the point of this threat is that manufacturing regions like ours need stronger regional aid in the form grants and incentives for firms to retain jobs and skills, to expand and to invest here, then Mr Jones is right.

For all the apparent comparative health of East Lancashire's labour market, the manufacturing sector is struggling and there has been a severe haemorrhage of jobs to not only other parts of the world but also other parts of this country because they offer greater incentives.

To compete and to save jobs, East Lancashire needs a level playing field andgreater equality of opportunity than the patchwork of selective regional aid some parts of it have at present. That is the case that must be forcibly and urgently put to the government.