After Hugh, Who?

The death of Hugh Gaitskell has left Britain's Opposition without a single figure who can be counted on to unite the Labor Party behind him. Worse yet, with election talk in the air, Laborites fear that no likely successor is of sufficient stature to win immediate national acceptance as a potential Prime Minister.

The party is torn between two leading contenders who personify the warring extremes within the party that took Hugh Gaitskell seven turbulent years to pacify. Top right-wing candidate is Deputy Leader George Brown, an earthy, onetime errand boy who infuriates leftist intellectuals by addressing them as "brother." Brown, 48, is a staunch antiCommunist, a firm believer in the Western alliance, and, until Gaitskell committed the party to an anti-European line, was a vigorous advocate of British membership in the Common Market.

Gutty, impulsive, often explosively gauche, Brown has had little formal education or top-level administrative experience, but is a knowledgeable defense expert who criticized Britain's commitment to the Skybolt missile as far back as 1960. His most impressive endorsement came last week from the prestigious Economist, which argued that criticisms of his quick temper and impatience with technical detail "could also have been levied against Winston Churchill." Unlike Gaitskell, whose political philosophy was based on an essentially out-of-date view of an "insular and downtrodden England," argued the weekly, Brown's socialism is that "of an age when intelligent thrusters have learned to look forward in opportunity:"

"Little Harold." Labor's left wing supports Harold Wilson, 46, an adroit, urbane debater and topnotch intellect who was an Oxford economics don at 21. As President of the Board of Trade in Clem ent Attlee's Cabinet, pipe-puffing Yorkshireman Wilson has had more administrative experience than any of his rivals, is the party's foreign policy specialist. Despite his brilliance and charm, Wilson's foes, who call him "Little Harold," regard him as a slippery opportunist who backs only winning causes--though he miscalculated in 1960 when he attempted to grab the leadership while Gaitskell was fighting for his political life against the party's powerful anti-NATO bloc.

Brown defeated Wilson for the deputy leadership, 133 to 103, last year. But this time Brown has an added challenge: James Callaghan, 50, who also has strong middle-road and right-wing support. A naval petty officer's son who would have been Chancellor of the Exchequer in a Gaitskell Cabinet, "Stoker" Callaghan is a hard-boiled debater and effective TV performer, but is regarded by many colleagues as a lightweight. To prepare for the chancellorship, he has been cramming with some of Oxford's brightest young dons, who privately rate him "B or B-plus." He is an engaging, hard-working politician, and many of Brown's supporters fear that he may split the right-wing vote. In a deadlock, he could even emerge as Labor's leader.

Foe's Woes. The choice of an effective Opposition leader has seldom seemed more important to the Labor Party or to the nation--particularly since governmental power in Britain has in recent years increasingly moved from the Commons and the Cabinet into the hands of the Prime Minister. Admittedly, the likelihood of a Labor Prime Minister in the near future has been dimmed by Gaitskell's death. On the other hand, the Tories have little immediate cause for confidence : on top of Charles de Gaulle's brusque rejection of the government's bid for Common Market membership, unemployment--the most crucial issue in British politics today--has jumped an alarming 25% in one month, reaching a 16-year record of 814,632 (partly due to layoffs in the bitter winter weather).

Labor's leader will probably not be chosen until mid-February. Laborites hoped that Tory setbacks would give them time to develop a winning personality who could keep their party united.

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