Britain Tories Rebuffed

The bucolic electoral district of Brecon and Radnor (48,000 registered voters), situated on the eastern boundary of Wales, would appear an unlikely place for Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher's Conservative government to take a tumble. In the 1983 general election, the Tories carried the district, which comprises mainly small beef and sheep farmers, by almost 9,000 votes. But in a by-election reversal last week, Brecon and Radnor voters handed the government a stunning defeat. Conservative Christopher Butler finished last among the three major candidates with a dismal 27.6% of the vote. Butler's total of 10,631 votes left him 3,122 ballots behind the winner, Social Democratic/Liberal Alliance Candidate Richard Livsey. The Labor Party nominee, Richard Willey, finished a close second, just 559 votes short of Livsey.

British observers saw the Conservative defeat as more than the usual midterm by-election setback. Said Liberal Party Press Spokesman Jim Dumsday: "The sheer size of the Conservative failure is quite out of proportion with what one would expect from just midterm blues." Also, because the Brecon and Radnor vote was only the eighth by-election since the 1983 Conservative landslide, it provided a rare opportunity for voters to express their opinion of the Thatcher government. Liberal Party canvassers found that the overriding issue was Thatcher's aggressive style and personality. "We kept hearing, 'It's that woman. We don't like that woman,' " Dumsday said.

The defeat will increase pressure on Thatcher from moderate Tories, known as the "wets," to respond to Britain's 13.4% unemployment rate with stepped- up spending for public-sector jobs. The dissident Conservatives, including ex-Foreign Secretary Francis Pym, fear that unless the Prime Minister shows more compassion about unemployment, the centrist alliance between the Liberal and Social Democratic parties will continue to erode Tory support.

Labor Leader Neil Kinnock, who campaigned in the district along with 16 members of his shadow cabinet and 150 Labor M.P.s, called his party's "magnificent" second-place finish "another step on the road to becoming the next government." For the time being, at least, that remains wishful thinking on Kinnock's part. Despite the loss in Brecon and Radnor, Thatcher retains a 140-vote majority in Britain's 650-member House of Commons, and does not have to call a general election until June 1988.