Rout in the Towns

Throughout its long democratic history, Britain has seldom had a more unpopular government than that of Prime Minister Harold Wilson's -- or one so entrenched despite its low standing. After months during which its vote and its esteem from Britons have steadily declined, the Labor Party last week suffered its most extensive and embarrassing defeat yet.

Laborites had expected at least small losses in Britain's local elections, chiefly because of the sluggish economy and austerity at home, but they experienced a shocker. From one end of Britain to the other, voters toppled Labor from control of town halls.

A count at week's end showed that Labor dropped 1,282 borough council seats, while the Conservatives gained 1,295. Steelmaking Sheffield, for 40 years a Labor fief, fell to the Tories; so did Norwich, after 35 years of Labor rule. London went solidly Conservative as Labor lost 16 boroughs, holding on to a mere four out of 32.

Though only a third of the council seats were at stake, the rout left Labor in control of only 43 out of 374 boroughs in England and Wales; only five of the 43 were in big cities.

Nationalist Obsessions. In particular, Harold Wilson's government met humiliating defeat in Scotland, long a stronghold of Labor strength. There, instead of losing to the Tories, Labor was beaten chiefly by the Scottish Nationalist Party, a party so weak a year ago that it amounted to little more than hope in the minds of its 60,000 members. Even last fall, when the Scot-Nats elected Mrs. Winifred Ewing, 38, a lawyer and mother of three, as their first member in Parliament since 1945 (TIME, Nov. 10), few considered them serious electoral contenders.

Last week the Nationalists drew 350,000 votes, captured an astonishing 103 seats in Scottish cities and towns. That was not enough to give them a majority in any city, but in Glasgow, Aberdeen and Stirling, they outpolled major parties to win the balance of political power. Those gains demonstrated that nationalism--the dominant political emotion these days in almost every country--has become something of an obsession in Scotland. Heady with victory, Scot-Nat leaders renewed their demand for independence after 261 years of union with England. Said Mrs. Ewing: "The Nationalist Party cannot now be stopped."

Inside Attack. Labor's setback also brought out unexpected opposition to Harold Wilson's continuance as Prime Minister. Press Lord Cecil King, head of Britain's largest publishing empire and a Wilson supporter in the last two general elections, demanded that the Prime Minister resign. In a signed frontpage blast in the Daily Mirror, King wrote: "Wilson and his government have lost all credibility, all authority. We are now threatened with the greatest financial crisis in our history. It is not to be removed by lies about our gold-dollar reserves, but only by a fresh start under a fresh leader." King's attack carried the authority of an insider, and he followed it up by resigning as a director of the Bank of England, which manages the country's day-to-day accounts. Britain's already shaky pound responded by weakening sharply in world money markets.

Despite his woes, Wilson's grip on the reins of government is not yet weak enough to threaten him with immediate ouster. Though Labor has lost the last seven Parliamentary by-elections in a row, it still holds a 73-vote majority in Commons--down 24 from its 97-seat edge after the March 1966 elections. Parliament's term runs until the spring of 1971. Barring an unlikely uprising inside the Labor Party, Wilson can govern until then, even though the majority of Britain's electorate has swung clearly to the Conservatives.

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