Down the Middle

Ever since Harold Wilson squeaked into power five months ago, he has had his hands full trying to stay in power with his five-vote parliamentary majority. Postponed were the heady socialist dreams of renationalizing the steel industry, state purchase of urban land, and a first hundred days' whirlwind assault on modernizing Britain. Fact is that Wilson has had nowhere to go but straight down the middle, hoping to keep everybody happy and himself employed.

Even the middle has had its perils. Labor's left wing wants no part of his unstinting support of the new U.S. firmness in Viet Nam; 48 left-wing Laborites led by M.P. Sidney Silverman have introduced a motion in the House declaring that Britain is unable to support the "U.S. war" in Viet Nam. The frailty of Labor's margin was plainly illustrated fortnight ago by a surprise Tory victory in the House on two votes that were not quite important enough to bring the government down. And though the Gallup polls show Wilson's own personal popularity rising, that of the Labor Party is tailing off as the Conservatives make a comeback.

Last week Wilson was in West Germany on a trip aimed at bolstering the British economy--and at improving his political image. One of the major drains on the British balance of payments is the 51,000-man British Army of the Rhine, which costs London some $200 million a year to maintain. London wanted the West Germans to shoulder more of this load themselves by "Buying British," perhaps aircraft and broadcasting equipment as well as arms.

Things did not go half badly. After lunch and a look at the Wall with Mayor Willy Brandt in Berlin, Wilson went on to Bonn, where he sat down with Chancellor Ludwig Erhard for an informal dinner that went on until midnight. Out of it came 1) an assurance that Erhard would look into the matter of Buying British, and 2) a book entitled A Picturesque Tour Along the Rhine from Mainz to Cologne--a gift from Ludwig to Harold.

Flying back to London with good notices from both the German and British press, Wilson went ahead with plans for trips next month to Paris, New York, Washington and Rome. This was image-building indeed. In London it was suggested that Labor's leader had in mind a sudden election in June in the hope of broadening his present slender majority.

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