Once More, Without Feeling

Ever since Laborite Prime Minister Harold Wilson squeaked to power in an indecisive election seven months ago, Britain's political parties have been girding themselves for a second clarifying confrontation over control of Parliament. This week Wilson is expected to announce the date (probably Oct. 10) for that contest. The mystery is why he kept the suspense going so long. Wilson's usually fractious Labor team seemed to be the only party poised for the long-awaited return engagement.

Edward Heath's Conservatives, who like to portray themselves as the party of law and order best equipped to calm a crisis-ridden nation, began the campaign amid signs of disarray. Two senior members of the Tory shadow cabinet have managed to undermine Heath's already weakened party leadership by differing with him on key is sues. Sir Keith Joseph, the shadow Home Secretary, led off by asserting that the answer to Britain's raging inflation lies primarily in manipulating the nation's money supply, not in imposing the kind of wage-price controls that led Heath into a losing confrontation with coal miners last winter. Labor spokes men gleefully seized on Sir Keith's plan as proof that the Tories would be willing to tolerate mass unemployment--the certain risk of a prolonged money squeeze--as an anti-inflation tool.

Thumping Blooper. Sir Keith's venture into monetary policy was a mild embarrassment compared with the thumping blooper committed by Shadow Foreign Secretary Geoffrey Rippon. Apparently seeking to calm jittery middle-class voters, Rippon suggested the creation of a "citizens' voluntary reserve" that would "aid the civil power" against anyone defying the law. That plan sounded all too close to the controversial idea of antistrike forces recently proposed by retired military officers. Labor Home Secretary Roy Jenkins accused the Tories of "climbing onto the pathetic bandwagon of some superannuated colonels." Rippon's "reserve" proved such a touchy idea that Tory Party Chairman William Whitelaw was forced to point out that it was not mentioned in the party manifesto.

Then even the manifesto caused some Tory red faces. Prepared after long intramural wrangling, it was scheduled for publication late last week after Heath returned from a trip to the U.S. While Heath was still abroad, copies of the manifesto were mysteriously slipped to three London dailies, which proceeded to scoop the Conservative Party with its own platform. Entitled "Putting Britain First," the manifesto puts the fight against inflation above everything else, warning bluntly that "because of the economic crisis, there is no room for early improvement in living standards." The political thrust of the document was clearly aimed as much at wooing back the hundreds of thousands of usually Tory voters who had defected to the Liberals as it was against Labor.

Blank Check. The Conservatives were mildly encouraged by the troubles that Liberal Leader Jeremy Thorpe was having last week within his own party over the issue of whether to join a coalition in case the election once again fails to produce a clear-cut majority. A group of young Liberal purists flayed Thorpe "and his accomplices" as "traitors" for their willingness to compromise party principles in a bid for power. Thorpe eventually won a blank check to enter into coalition talks if the economic crisis warranted the creation of a national government. The possibility of a coalition gained further momentum from Heath's flat statement that he "would be prepared to take into the government members of other parties."

Labor seemed to have a slight edge, although whether it can increase its representation in the House of Commons depends largely upon whether it can recapture seats lost earlier to nationalist party candidates in Scotland and Wales.* Assured of union agreement to moderate wage demands at least for a while, Wilson has managed to paper over the deep divisions of his party. As for the Conservatives, they were faced with an electoral post-mortem from Essex University researchers showing that the principal cause of their defeat at the polls last February was voter distaste for Heath's somewhat antiseptic political style. In all, the political portents were doleful enough to make most voters thankful that the campaign would last a mercifully short three weeks.

*Current composition of the House: Labor, 300; Conservative, 297; Liberal, 15; Scottish Nationalists and others, 23.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.