BRITISH POLITICS SHOULD MR WILSON HAVE AN ELECTION IN MARCH'

Press, Volume CV, Issue 30957, 13 January 1966, Page 10

BRITISH POLITICS SHOULD MR WILSON HAVE AN ELECTION IN MARCH'

IBu R

L. LEONARD

in the “Guardian,” Manchester]

i Reprinted by arrangement I

“If I were Prime Minister, I’d have the election in March.”—Lord Attlee last week.

In earlv December there was a great deal of press speculation about a March election. It later transpired that Mr du Cann [chairman ot the Conservative Party] was the probable source of the rumours and the story soon languished.

I make no apology for reviving it now. 1 am not Mr du (amis agent and have in fact been an active member of the Labour 1 arty for approaching two decades, so it may perhaps be conceded that my on \ interest in the matter is for the Government s welfare. But I would like to record my conviction that if the March option is not taken up a most promising opportunity will have been lost.

In the earlier bout of speculation three particular reasons were adduced why Mr Wilson should choose I March—the probability of I 'another deflationary Budget, ithe likelihood of widespread] : Labour losses in the local i elections in early May, and | the risk that the Rhodesian] I situation might deteriorate. ] These are. in themselves, a long way from being conclusive. They are matters of uncertainty, and it may very well be that each of them may work out to the Govern- ] ment’s advantage and that it may emerge later in the year in a stronger position than it is now. But it should at least be conceded that the two latter situations are largely outside the Government’s control, and that the possibilities of setbacks are real. From Day To Day . If the problem is approached as one of March versus October it is not easy to resolve; there are viable arguments on either side. But in the Government’s present situation this is fundamentally the wrong approach. For better or worse, the Government is condemned by its precarious majority to live from day to day. The question which it should now be facing is simply: if there were an election in March would we win? The answer is, almost certainly, yes. At no time since the war have the auguries appeared more propitious for the incumbent Government. The most recent Gallup Poll prediction would give Labour a parliamentary majority of 130 seats: the N.O.P.’s latest prediction suggests a majority of 160. Nor are these findings a mere flash in the pan. With the single exception of the poll following Mr Heath’s selection as leader, the N.O.P. has put Labour consistently ahead for 14 months, while the Gallup poll has shown a . ntinuous Labour lead since early September. Had it not been for the Leyton fiasco, and the frequent disparities between the polls during the last two years, this evidence would surely be regarded as conclusive. But, whatever their fluctuations between elections, and in spite of their less than perfect record in predicting by-elections, neither of the polls has shown a margin of error in measuring the gap between the two leading parties of more than 3 J per cent at any election since 1945. There must, therefore, be a strong presumption that if both the polls put Labour more than 4 per cent ahead it would win an early General Election. By-elections The evidence from by-elec-tions is hardly less conclusive. At each post-war General Election the Government has done better than in the immediately preceding crop of by-elections. David Butler traced the record even further back to 1924 and found this to be an unvarying phenomenon. The last two by-elections (Erith and Crayford and Cities of London and Westminster) showed, on average, a fractional swing away from the Government. By all past precedent, that should portend a swing to the Government of at least 1 per cent at an early General Election. If the Labour candi-

date wins at North Hull this should clinch the argument, but even a loss by a few hundred votes would still be a relatively favourable omen. There are three further compelling reasons favouring March against October. The first is the state of the electoral register. It is widely known that a new register benefits Labour, but the extent of this benefit is less universally appreciated. According to an inquiry carried out some years ago by the Government Social Survey.

the register which comes into force in mid-February will be only 93$ per cent accurate by mid-March. By midOctober this figure will have fallen to 90 per cent—a difference of U million voters. Of these, about 250,000 will have died, leaving a million who will have moved their homes between March and October.

These people will be able to vote only if they apply for a postal vote or if they take the- trouble to travel back to their previous homes on polling day. Partly owing to the Conservatives’ better constituency organisation and partly due to the greater propensity of middle class people to claim a postal vote, it is virtually certain that the Conservatives would poll a substantially higher proportion of their supporters who would have changed their address during this period. Tories’ Advantage The extent of the Tories’ advantage from an old register has often been measured by the number of seats which they have won by a smaller margin than the total number of votes polled. Butler and King list 12 seats which the Tories would have owed to the postal vote in 1964 if, as seems likely, it split 2 : 1 in their favour. But this almost certainly underestimates their advantage, because it takes no account of voters who have been conveyed back to their former homes to record their votes in person. There is no way of telling how many of these there are, though their number cannot be small, especially in the larger cities, and it is inflated by an anomaly in the postal vote regulations preventing the claim of a postal vote for a removal within a single local government area. Thus, if 1 were to move less than 50 yards from my home in South Kensington into Fulham 1 could claim a pos r tai vote, but if my brother were to move nearly ten miles from Wythenshawe at one

end of Manchester to Blackley at the other he would not be eligible. It is impossible to compute the precise advantage which the Tories gain from an October rather than a March poll, but it is unlikely to amount to less than 1 per cent of the total vote. As the 1964 election was held in October, a March election, assuming that there had been no change at all tn the public's voting intentions, would increase Labour’s overall majority to about 25. Another reason for March rather than October is a financial one. Despite Labour’s unprecedented expenditure on publicity in 1963-64, the Tories still expended over three times as much. If there is no March election, they will certainly assume that the contest will be in October and throughout the summer will deluge the country with posters and newspaper advertisements in their accustomed pre-electoral manner. A March election would forestall this, and enable Labour to fight on something like equal terms for the first time since 1945. Strongest Reason But, paradoxically, the strongest reason against waiting till October is that the Prime Minister has all along given the impression that this was the date he had in mind. For, suppose that in October the auguries pointed to a Labour defeat, would Mr Wilson still go to the country? Presumably not. “If I have survived two years with this majority,” he would argue, "why not carry on for another six months or a year, or even two years?” And, barring accidents, there is no reason why he should not. but if he were to do so he would rapidly lose his moral ascendancy. Like the Tories from ] 1962-64, he would appear to Ibe just hanging on, refusing Ito go to the country only (because he was afraid to lose.

But, with a majority of ] three, his Government's 'authority would he undermined to a much more disastrous extent than was ever true of Macmillan or Home. Its bargaining power would be fatally weakened in relation to a wide range of potential partners or antagonists: trade unionists hesitating to court unpopularity by supporting the incomes policy, Tory education authorities wondering if they should acquiesce in Mr Crosland's comprehensive circular, landowners unsure whether to let go of development land, above all, foreign governments and financiers upon whose goodwill we remain so greatly dependent. With so much at stake, it would surely be uncharacteristically foolhardy of the Prime Minister to run the risk of landing himself in this position.