Wilson's Breather

For nine uneasy months since the Labor government came to power, Britain has lived in day-to-day expectation of another general election. Last week Prime Minister Harold Wilson ended the suspense. "I do not believe," he pronounced, "that the British people want an election." At any rate, Harold Wilson no longer wants one--this year.

Even the Tories could not fault Labor's timing. Despite a quicksilver majority of three, Wilson has managed to push through his most unpalatable legislation, a series of belt-tightening measures designed to whip Britain's flabby economy into competitive trim. The one issue that might conceivably have toppled the government, steel nationalization, has been discreetly shelved until the next parliamentary session, starting in November. In the breathing spell thus gained, Wilson aims to woo the Liberal Party to his side, thereby boosting his effective majority to a relatively dependable 23.

By next year, Labor hopes, voters will have learned to live with stringent new consumer taxes that have helped boost living costs 4%, the biggest six-month gain in 13 years. Meanwhile the tax bite has given the Conservatives a clear edge over Labor in local elections. If Britons were to vote the same way nationally tomorrow, by the Economist's reckoning, they might unseat one-third of all Labor M.P.s and return the Tories to power with a majority of more than 190.

Wilson's nerve-racking nine months have galvanized the Opposition. Party Chairman Edward Du Cann, 41, a new Tory dark horse who had a brilliant career as a financial prodigy before turning to politics, has streamlined the Conservatives' campaign machinery, fattened their treasury for battle, and democratized the invidious, invisible ritual by which Harold Macmillan established the 14th Earl of Home as his successor in 1963. Tory strategists, busily updating party policy on every issue from foreign policy to tax reform, will soon have an election manifesto at the ready.

What the Tories cannot update is Sir Alec Douglas-Home. Whether joshing on television or jousting in Commons, the diffident, aristocratic Opposition leader is ingloriously upstaged by Wilson's wiles. Though he invariably trails the Prime Minister in national popularity polls, Home has refused to step down in favor of a more appealing candidate. For that matter, neither of his two ablest lieutenants and most likely successors--Reginald Maudling, now the Opposition's foreign policy expert, and Edward Heath, its "shadow" economics minister--has yet shown any relish for challenging the leader. The Tories, still recovering from the shock of finding themselves on the outs after 13 years in office, have at least closed ranks--a feat that perennially eludes Wilson's Laborites. And last week, the odds in favor of a Tory victory in the next election stood at 7-4.

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