Britain: The Odds on Labor

THE scene: Edinburgh airport. A lass working for the British Board of Trade and assigned to quiz every 30th arriving passenger flips open her pad.

"What is the reason for your visit?"

"Business, politics, winning an election," replies the pink-cheeked gentleman.

"How long has your firm been in business?"

"Since the time of Benjamin Disraeli."

"What is your final destination?"

"No. 10 Downing Street."

Only then did she recognize Edward ("Ted") Heath, 53, leader of the Conservative Party and aspirant Prime Minister. Last week's Edinburgh encounter was symptomatic of the plight of Ted Heath and his embattled Tories, who have been out of office for nearly six years. As Britain this week prepares to go to the polls in the eighth general election since 1945, Heath stands scant chance of moving into 10 Downing Street. Instead, British bookies were giving odds as high as 10-to-1 that Laborite Harold Wilson would become the first Prime Minister in the last 100 years to lead his party to three consecutive electoral victories.

Polls Ahead. For four days last week, Britain's newspaper-loving public was deprived of reading about the politicking. Eleven national papers were closed by a strike, and election buffs were reduced to crowding around the telly for their news. When the papers reappeared, after settling on a 10% pay increase, they reported opinion samplings showing that Labor had increased its lead by as much as 12.4%. It was a remarkable turnaround; a year ago, Labor trailed the Tories by as much as 26.8%. Wilson's current lead--if it stands up --would give the party a massive 140-seat majority in the Commons. That would be an even greater Labor victory than the one in 1966 that resulted in a 96-seat edge in the Commons.

Some Laborites, in fact, were concerned that the party's overconfident supporters would feel it unnecessary even to vote on June 18. This would present the well-organized Tory machine with an opportunity to turn out its own voters and thus narrow the Labor margin, or perhaps, in the highly unlikely event of a reversal of Labor fortunes, even squeak through to an upset triumph.

Ducking Issues. In the final week of campaigning, Wilson, usually accompanied by his wife Mary, billowed through the hustings, laughing off barrages of eggs, bags of talcum powder, Tory hecklers and even a bolt of lightning that struck his train at Attenborough. Heath, whistling across the sceptred isle in an executive prop jet. plugged away at his efforts to swing 49 key marginal constituencies away from Labor. But Heath was unable to match Wilson's jaunty confidence. He did unbend enough toward the campaign's end to drink with workers in pubs and buss young girls. Nonetheless. Heath sniffed. "I don't regard this election as a competition between n couple of circus masters."

If Wilson gave little heed to the issues, voters paid less attention to Heath's attempts to raise them. For one thing, the British were distracted by the World Cup Soccer matches in Mexico City, where the British team is defending its championship title.

The most important immediate issue facing Britain has barely been raised at all. That is Common Market membership for Britain, which would carry the advantage of larger markets for British goods but would mean higher food prices at home. Admission negotiations start on the Continent next month. While both Labor and Tory leaders favor Britain's entry, samplings show 57% of the electorate is opposed. Wilson simply dodges the point, referring questioners to dull previous statements. Heath has been somewhat more forthright. But in Portsmouth, after hailing the potential benefits to Britain of Common Market membership, Heath wound up his paean by saying that "no British government could take the British people into the Common Market against their will."

Almost equally ignored was the fact that despite the gloss of affluence over London, and despite Manchester's massive -L-250 million urban-renewal program, too much of the north--and other areas too--feels neglected by the planners in the capital. In the gloom of Glasgow tenements, the shoddy dock areas of Liverpool and in blackened, beaten-down Leeds, the shadows thicken. "People are fed up," says Liberal Candidate Willis Pickard in Edinburgh, "with being run from Westminster and Whitehall." Over the entire north, unemployment has risen from 2% four years ago to 5.2% last year. Half the unemployed are men tinder 40. The three major industries of the north--coal, steel and shipbuilding--still tremble from a recession. True enough, the British economy has been brightened immeasurably in the past several months by the turnaround in the nation's balance of payments position, which ran a 1969-70 surplus of $1.45 billion, twice the targeted figure. For many in Britain, the sudden sunniness brought by the relaxation of government curbs on wages has been sweet indeed. Asked if he thought it would last, Edinburgh Electrician Jack Miller grinned: "How would I know? I only know Harold's made it happen." Heath, who warns of a new onset of inflation that w;ll eat up the higher wages, has been unable to excite the generally well-off electorate with his prophecies of economic doom.

Racial Stab1;. In the final stretch, the campaign suddenly turned bitter over an issue that would play a role in deciding the election outcome in no more than 20 of Britain's 630 electoral districts. The issue is race. It is a problem the British largely ignored until a decade of Immigration from Asia and the Caribbean has pushed the nonwhite population to a present total of 1.3 million. The man who raised the issue was Tory Enoch Powell, Harold Macmillan's Minister of Health. In 1968 Powell prophesied that rivers of blood would flow in Britain if colored immigration was allowed to continue. More recently, he demanded citizenship legislation to differentiate between those who "belong" in Britain and those who do not, as well as a ban on the entry of dependents of immigrants already landed and a bribe for those nonwhites who agree to leave Britain.

Speaking to constituents in his Midlands district of Wolverhampton, Powell last week charged that the sacrosanct Civil Service had "cruelly and persistently misled" the public as to the size of the immigrant problem. In a tactic reminiscent of the late Senator McCarthy, Powell said, "One begins to wonder if the Foreign Office is the only department of state into which enemies of this country have infiltrated."

Best Advice. Powell's slur drew an angry and immediate riposte from the Labor Party. "If Powell has evidence of traitors in government departments," said Home Secretary James Callaghan, who oversees British internal security, "he has not made any approach to me. If this is more than a smear scare, I must ask him to come to me at once." But Heath, who in 1968 expelled Powell from his Shadow Cabinet because of his racial views, refused to censure Powell for fear of provoking a split in the Tories. Many theorized that Powell, foreseeing a Tory defeat at the polls, was seeking to lay the foundations for a post-election challenge to Heath's leadership. In view of Heath's timidity, the best advice for the Tories came from Laborite Defense Minister Denis Healey. "I hope no British party," he said, "would put its trust in a man who chooses the height of electoral battle to stab his leader in the back."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.