The Taxicab Majority

(See Cover)

The election was a squeaker--and the government it produced would have to hang on for dear life. Labor won the election, but it did not win the country, and it only barely won control of the House of Commons. The outcome almost too neatly balanced growing dissatisfaction and boredom with the Tories against lingering distrust of the socialists.

All through election night, Labor's jubilation mounted as its margin seemed to rise. When counting ended for the night, Harold Wilson's party was 67 seats ahead. But next day, as the delayed rural results came in, Labor's lead began to dwindle sharply. By noon it was down to 37. An hour later it was only 19. In the end, with 630 seats at stake, Labor had won 317, or a majority of only four. The Tories carried 304 constituencies, down 56. The minuscule Liberal Party had nine, up two from the last Parliament, and Liberal Leader Jo Grimond promised, "under certain conditions," to support a Labor government. In the popular vote, Labor captured 44.2% of the ballots, Conservatives 43.4%, Liberals 11.2%, Communists .2% , others 1.0% .

Trying to run the government and pass legislation with that slim a margin will prove an immense strain--and, before too long, probably impossible. In 1950 Clement Attlee's Labor government won a majority of six, and Attlee was forced to call another election within 18 months, which Labor lost, starting the long Tory reign. During those 18 months, politicians used to crack: "Suppose there's an important vote in the Commons and a taxi carrying a full load of Labor M.P.s breaks down--out goes the government." As things are now, the taxi need not even carry a full load:

Personalities. The Tories suffered particularly painful embarrassment in the defeat of several of their Cabinet members: ex-Prime Minister Harold Macmillan's son Maurice, who was Economic Secretary to the Treasury, lost in Halifax; Postmaster-General Reginald Bevins was beaten in Liverpool; Health Minister Anthony Barber fell at Doncaster; and Geoffrey Rippon, Minister of Works, was defeated at Norwich. But Labor had a bad local setback too. Patrick Gordon Walker, slated to be Foreign Secretary, was beaten in his constituency of Smethwick, a part of Birmingham where the race issue is raging because of heavy immigration by West Indians, Pakistanis and Sikhs from India, turning whole neighborhoods into slums. Because the Laborites originally opposed Tory-sponsored curbs on Commonwealth immigration (actually, they have since changed their stand), and because the party platform blames conditions on "landlordism" rather than on the immigrants themselves, a devastating local slogan arose: "If you want a nigger neighbor, vote Labor."

On balance, Tory Leader Sir Alec Douglas-Home fought a remarkable fight. A year ago, as an aristocratic amateur, he had inherited a party shattered by the Profumo scandal and enervated by a dozen years in power. They laughed when he sat down on the government front bench--but when he started to play politics, he very nearly led his party to victory. To a large extent, of course, it was a contest of personalities.

Wilson emphasized this again when he drove to the palace last week to "kiss hands" and formally accept the Queen's commission to head a new government. He turned that routine ceremony into a symbolic occasion by taking along not only his handsome wife Mary, but his two sons, Robin, 21, and Giles, 16, and his father Herbert, a retired industrial chemist who, a vigorous 81, had campaigned tirelessly for his son. Wilson was, in effect, proudly displaying his lower-middle-class origins. He is the first Prime Minister in British history who is a "grammar-school boy" --meaning he did not attend one of the country's select private schools.

While many Britons obviously still love a lord, many others saw Home as the only recently unbelted earl, millionaire, landowner, and symbol of everything old-fashioned and privileged in the Tory Party. Despite Britain's gradually fading class lines, class feeling is still strong--and perhaps at the bottom more so than at the top. Wilson told foot-stomping, cheering crowds that "we must get rid of established privilege" and ridiculed the "old-boy network." And he enjoyed the cut-and-thrust of argument with hecklers as much as Old Etonian Home abhorred it. When Wilson referred one Midlands heckler to a printed pamphlet, a Laborite cried, "He can't read!" Wilson rejoined, "Oh, yes he can. He went to a Yorkshire school, not to Eton."

Wilson also carefully set out to build a new Wilson--a warmer, folksier character than the arrogant and computerized type he has always appeared to be. How long the new image will last remained to be seen. Shortly after the election, the new Prime Minister snapped at photographers on a train: "I must tell you once and for all, I'm not a performing seal. I will not be photographed eating or drinking."

The Economy. Beyond personality, the central issue was--and remains--prosperity, its care and feeding. The Tories claimed credit for full employment and fat pay packets. British workers were vacationing in Spain and on the Balearic Islands; clerks and stevedores were moving into houses in developments and erasing bad old memories of the dole and Depression. Douglas-Home urged voters not to risk their jobs and their living standard by opting for the "officialdom run riot and red tape" of a Labor government.

Wilson countered that the British economy, while seemingly flush, is dangerously stagnant. There is much truth in this, so that yesterday's campaign issue is tomorrow's chief problem for the new government. The growth rate of British industry is one of the lowest in Western Europe and the balance-of-payments deficit rose alarmingly from $266 million to $310 million between August and September. Wilson insisted that "Britain will have just as much influence in the world as we can earn and deserve"--and that only Labor has the efficiency and the ideas that will make Britain earn and deserve more. The argument was somewhat dimmed by the fact that while no one doubted Wilson's own brilliance, his team is composed either of old-line party socialists or of promising but untried intellectuals with little or no administrative experience (see box).

At the same time, while even Communism is admitting the need for capitalist-style incentives, many suspect that, as the London Times put it: "At the heart of much Labor thinking there is still the idea of an egalitarian society. There has been some move away from the old rigidity when -L-2,000 a year was envisaged as a maximum for anyone. But the old Adam is not dead."

Socialism. Just how socialist is Britain's new government likely to be? While Wilson indulges in some ritualistic patter about Wall Street operators and Ruhr barons, he stresses science more than socialism, efficiency as much as welfare. Besides, a great deal of Britain is socialist for keeps, no matter who is in power. Coal mines, railroads and a segment of steel are nationalized already; the gas and electric industries are run by public corporations, as are airlines, broadcasting, canals and atomic energy.

Labor is committed to nationalizing the rest of the steel industry and possibly the trucking business. Wilson has also promised to modify the private ownership of land so as to prevent speculation--and of course he has vast housing and pension schemes. To accomplish all this he intends to set up a superministry of planning, which will overshadow the established economic departments (Treasury, Board of Trade). But it is highly unlikely that Wilson will be able to accomplish much of this in the near future. Quite apart from his precarious parliamentary position, he has urgent problems to take care of, notably the balance-of-payments crisis and the weakening pound.

Foreign Affairs. In foreign and defense matters, Wilson creates some uneasiness in Washington. He wants to abandon Britain's independent nuclear deterrent, wants to renegotiate the Nassau agreement, which originally promised Britain Polaris missiles. This switch might not trouble Washington. But Wilson is also known to be cool, if not downright hostile, to joining M.L.F., the multilateral nuclear force that the U.S. is pushing hard, and he is sometimes regarded as a little too eager for a detente with Communism and for various disarmament schemes. But despite the lingering left wing, Harold Wilson's Labor Party is basically pro-Western and pro-NATO.

The worrisome part for Britain and its allies is not that the Conservatives lost--for their own good, they could use some time in opposition--but that Labor won by so narrow a margin. In Europe, in Anglo-U.S. relations, in defense and the cold war, Britain ought to make its influence felt through a strong and stable government. Instead, Britain is saddled with a regime that lacks authority and that will be constantly hampered by close votes and surrounded by controversy.

Much of the controversy will be provided by Sir Alec Douglas-Home, who left No. 10 Downing Street within 24 hours after the polls closed and got ready to lead Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition--a job he says "will be comparatively easy." He added, with a characteristic mixture of eclat and cliche: "I enjoyed being Prime Minister, but one must take the rough with the smooth." Harold Wilson appeared equally determined to enjoy his sojourn as Prime Minister. Despite the narrowness of his victory, Wilson insisted that Labor has a mandate to make "many changes." He added: "We intend to fulfill that mandate, and we are concerned to ensure that there should be a true partnership between the government and the people."

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