Jeremy Thorpe & Co.

"We are all minorities now," said Liberal Party Leader Jeremy Thorpe last week, adding realistically "and indeed some more than others." True enough. With Britain's two major parties separated by only five seats--301 for Labor, 296 for the Tories--the balance of power in the new Parliament is held by four splinter groups, which collectively won 24% of the popular vote in last month's election and 34 of the 635 seats in the House of Commons. Whether or not Harold Wilson and his Labor government survive depends on the political decisions of these small, dissimilar groups.

By far the most important is the rejuvenated Liberal Party, which gained 19.3% of the popular vote and 14 seats in the House (up from eleven in the last Parliament). Party Leader Thorpe is already flexing his political muscles. After rejecting a coalition with Edward Heath's Tories, he promptly turned on Labor and issued what he called "a warning shot across their bows." Thorpe denounced Wilson's new Cabinet as "an old-fashioned Socialist government." He made it clear that the new Prime Minister would have to bend some of his party's doctrines to get Liberal support.

"If Wilson shelves all that left-wing nonsense of nationalizing everything, we could be brought on," said Thorpe. "If not, we may also vote against this government, even if it means bringing it down. If it did fall, the Queen would be very disinclined to grant another election, and she would then have to consider calling upon all parties to form a government of national unity. The chances are, however, that we shall be able to moderate this government and that Wilson will roll on for the next year or 18 months. But everyone will be walking on eggs from now on."

If Thorpe sounded a little self-satisfied, he had good reason. He and his colleagues pulled off something of a political miracle, taking little more than the name of a once great institution -- the party of William Gladstone, Herbert Asquith and Lloyd George -- and making it once again a force to be reckoned with in British politics. "This election was the most exciting thing you can imagine after 40 years in the wilderness," Thorpe says. "This may seem like a new party to the young people who are coming in, but to me it is a real tradition that has been brought back to life."

Intellectual Course. Since taking over the party leadership in 1967, Thorpe has tried to steer an intellectual course between the Scylla of Socialism and the Charybdis of Conservatism. The Liberals sided with the Tories in favoring entry into the European Common Market and in opposing further nationalization of industry. They backed Labor in favoring worker participation in companies and a rein on the profits of big business. If the party platform seemed a little vague, something both the major parties took pains to point out, that was at least in the Liberal tradition. Even when it was the dominant power in the country, Historian George Dangerfield once wrote, the Liberal Party was "solid and sensible and just a little mysterious."

The Liberals unquestionably picked up a lot of protest votes, but the party's resurgence owes much to the energy and style of its ebullient, Oxford-educated leader. A barrister by training, Thorpe, 44, spent three years during World War II at Connecticut's Rectory School. Even though he is descended from a long line of wealth and privilege, he was greatly Impressed with the lack of class barriers in the U.S. and sought to make the Liberal platform broad enough to attract both the charwoman and the countess. Thorpe's own aristocratic coloration has even given him something of a Kennedy-like sheen. He is probably more personally popular than either Harold Wilson or Edward Heath.

None of the other small parties in Parliament has even a pretension to national leadership. Nonetheless, the 20 votes they command may well determine the longevity of Wilson's government. They are:

> The Scottish Nationalist Party, which received almost a quarter of Scotland's total vote of 2.7 million and has seven seats in Parliament. Led by William Wolfe, the Scots want the profits from Britain's North Sea oil deposits, which they prefer to call "Scottish" reserves. They are also determinedly separatist, and want their own parliament for domestic affairs. "We've been put by luck of the draw into a position of power," jubilates Mrs. Winifred Ewing, an M.P. and a senior member of the party. "We have broken through now, and nothing can stop us."

> The Welsh Plaid Cymru ("those in favor of Wales"), which won two seats and 10% of Wales' popular vote of 1.5 million, also wants a regional parliament and full control over a Welsh economic development council. Like the Scottish nationalists (and unlike the Liberals), Plaid Cymru (pronounced Plied Cumree) is opposed to British membership in the Common Market. The party's titular leader: Gwynfor Evans.

> The Northern Ireland Unionists, who won eleven of Ulster's twelve seats, are looked upon as spoilers by all other parties, big and little. Comprised of diehard Protestants who refuse to share power with the Catholics in Northern Ireland, the Unionists want to undo the delicate coalition worked out by Heath's Tory government. That coalition is one of the major positive legacies of the Heath administration. Even if he does need eleven more votes, Wilson is unlikely to tamper with it and start the bloodshed once again.

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