BRITAIN'S ELECTION LABOUR SHOULD WIN—BUT IT’S NOT A ONE HORSE RACE

Press, Volume CV, Issue 31004, 9 March 1966, Page 12

BRITAIN'S ELECTION LABOUR SHOULD WIN—BUT IT’S NOT A ONE HORSE RACE

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CHRISTOPHER TUGENDHAT

in fhe "Financial Times 'J

[Reprinted bp arrangement!

There is no doubt about which party is the favourite to win the General Election on March 31. Mr Wilson is entering the campaign with a 9 per cent lead over the Conservatives on the latest Gallup poll, and a 13.5 per cent advantage on the National Opinion Poll, the biggest lead ever held by a Government at this stage of play. To some people the issue seems so clear cut that in one morning’s betting alone William Hill took £15,000 on a Labour victory despite offering odds of 4-1 on.

Much of the money has come from people hedging their investments in shares or property, which is why political betting is such an unreliable guide. But some of it has also come from those who believe they are betting on a certainty—and in the next four weeks they must be prepared for some rude shocks.

The polls are likely to narrow substantially and change several times between now and March 31. The pollsters themselves believe that the first sample to be taken after yesterday’s announcement will show a smaller gap, and that thereafter the swings will reflect the way the debate between the parties is progressing. There are no reliable precedents to go on. In 1959 it was the Government which drew ahead in the closing stages, and in 1964 it was the Opposition. Regional Swings There is more to forecasting election results than national swings. In fact there are an increasing number of I signs that the regional swings will be the deciding factor from now on. Mr David Butler and Mr Anthony King have I worked out that between 1950 iand 1964 Birmingham, LeicesIter, Bradford and Stoke-on-j Trent all showed swings to i the Conservatives of over 6 i per cent., whereas Glasgow (7.7) and Liverpool (4.8) have moved sharply towards Labour. If Mr Wilson is to fulfil his hopes of returning to office with a much larger majority he must hold on to his gains in Lancashire and Scotland, and win over new converts in the Midlands, where the race issue worked to Labour’s disadvantage in 1964, the South and the South West, where in many areas the Conservatives did better in 1964 than in 1959. The Conservatives for their-part must try to win back those marginal seats in the North and in the London suburbs which Labour captured last time. In this connexion, the quality of the parties’ candidates will be important. The last election showed that the old adage that the candidate is worth only 500 votes either way is no longer true. Good constituency members like the Conservative Edward Gardner of Billericay, and the Labour Donald Chapman of Northfield. Birmingham, do better than their parties in neighbouring constituencies.

The Liberals have done particularly well in this respect with people like Jeremy Thorpe and Eric Lubbock. The Liberal Vote The really interesting polls in the next few weeks will be those which show what is happening in specific regions, and more particularly what is happening to the Liberal vote. At the moment the three million or so people who voted Liberal in 1964 look as if they may hold the key to the result. At the recent Hull North by-election the Liberal vote fell sharply, and the defectors split 3 to 2 in favour of Labour. If this pattern is repeated all over the country Mr Wilson’s worries would be over. But Transport House will be as surprised as anybody if it does. Only last week an “Evening Standard" poll at Orpington forecast that the Liberal vote there may drop by over 20 per cent, with the Tories and Labour picking up 10 per cent each. This would be enough to ensure a handsome Conservative victory in Orpington and a similar split elsewhere in the South East would make the Government's task very difficult. However, the Liberals themselves are confident that all the talk over the crumbling of their position will prove to be misguided. They point out that in the months preceding the last General Election they suffered some bad setbacks in byelections at Luton, St. Marylebone and elsewhere, and that their percentage in the opinion polls is much the same as it was in the precampaign period of 1964. Under these circumstances Liberal officials hope to hold on tc all their present seats, and to pick up new ones at Chippenham, West Aberdeen, and North Cornwall from the Conservatives, and Colne Valley and Merioneth from Labour.

Less partisan observers do not take such a sanguine view. On the evidence of the Erith. London and Westminster, and Hull by-elections the Liberals I are losing votes in England, and will be lucky to hold on to what they have, let alone I gain. But even if the vast I majority of their 300 or sol ■candidates lose ground the: party has good reason to hope , that it will continue to do well; on the Celtic fringes where it has come to represent all the local protest feelings against the central government. 40 Vital Seats In England the vital seats will be the 40 where the defending party has a majority of less than 1000. These are divided equally between the two major parties, but most are in the southern half of the country, in suburban and urban areas. These are the places where the traditional Tory voters have been leaving the Conservative Party for the Liberals, and Mr Wilson will be trying to persuade them to move one step further left. The two sides will start the campaign on a more equal footing than usual since the election will be fought on a new register which will give the Conservatives less opportunity than in the past to pick up a bonus from postal voters. Nevertheless organisiation will play an important j part, and once again the Conservative machine seems to I be in better trim than its rival. Central Office claims i that candidates have already been adopted in all 618 seats, whereas Transport House admitted yesterday that there are still 23 where the local Labour Party has yet to endorse a man. Moreover the Labour Party still has only 210 full-time paid agents, whereas the Conservatives have one in practically every constituency. Many of Labour’s voters are crammed together in the industrial areas of the North and South Wales where they build up vast majorities which would be better spread over the country as a whole. In addition, the Conservatives always have a start of 12 seats among the Ulster Unionists in Northern Ireland. Inbuilt Advantage As a result, even if Labour has a lead of 1 per cent over the Conservatives on the iN.O.P. the Conservatives would still win five more ' seats. A 2 per cent lead for Labour gives it a majority of only 13. whereas if the 1 Conservatives had a 2 per cent lead their majority

would be 57. To achieve a majority comparable with Mr Macmillan's in the 1959 to 1964 Parliament Labour must stay 7 per cent ahead, and if the Liberals do well in terms of seats the margin must be even greater. On the basis of the last three (by-election results it is easy [to see why Mr Wilson seems to have been so hesitant to risk his present small majorly in the hope of a larger one in April. Although the Hull result repeated across the country would give him a majority of 155 there was a swing of 2.1 per cent to the Conservatives at Erith. At the General Election this would give them a majority of 50 to 70. Even in the Cities of London and Westminster where the Labour share of the vote went up by 2.3 per cent the Conservatives gained 1.1 per cent. In spite of the impressive Labour lead in the polls the by-elections show that the pattern is far from uniform and that although Labour must be favourite it is by no means certain to win. Moreover, as Mr Wilson himself has frequently said, the country is not anxious for another General Election less than two years after the last, and it would not be surprising if the very fact that he has called one leads to a certain loss of support. Last night both Mr Heath and Mr Grimond were stressing that only a fortnight ago the Prime Minister was talking as if the issue were still in doubt, and they were asking what had made him take the plunge. Another uncertainty is provided by the fact that the polls putting Labour well in the lead were taken before the defence debate reached its climax with Mr Mayhew’s resignation, and before the end of the bi-partisan policy on Rhodesia.

Neither of these Issues is likely to be as important as the domestic problems such as the cost of living, taxation, rates, and housing. Mortgages in particular are likely to play a prominent role in the election exchanges, and on television last night the Prime Minister held out the promise that if Labour were returned then action would he taken on this point. Sensitive Spots However, both Rhodesia ■ and the defence controversy touch Labour on a sensitive spot. In 1964 there was a widespread fear among many voters that Labour would not handle defence affairs as well I as the Conservatives, and that the party was always “problack” when the interests of black and white clashed. The immigration act relieved these fears, but Britain’s economic war on the white Rhodesians and the failure to achieve a quick result may rebound to the Government’s disadvantage. The Conservative argument in favour of opening negotiations with Smith may easily help the party to pick up some unexpected support. Under these circumstances it looks as if the individual party campaigns will prove to be crucial to the result. Already the tone has been set. The Government will claim that it has already displayed enough vigour and courage in tackling a difficult situation to justify being given a sufficient majority to show what it can do over a longer period. The Conservatives ! for their part will stress how far the Government's performance has fallen short of the promises it made in 1964. On paper Mr Heath has a good case, but this line of attack did not do well at Hull. Many electors there accepted the bulk of the Conservative candidate's arguments but nevertheless voted Labour. They felt that although Labour had not done every, thing it set out to do, the difficult economic situation which was inherited from the Tories was in large part responsible, and that the Government's efforts on prices and incomes showed that it had at least begun to attempt to tackle the problem. In this connexion, too. the fact that the trade deficit has been reduced is a further argument in support of Labour's claims. But more important at Hull was the feeling that in any case after 13 years of Tory 1 rule the Labour ministers ’ deserved a chance to show ' their paces. It is this feeling which gives Mr Wilson h>s ’ greatest advantage, and it is ' one which Mr Heath and his colleagues will find very difficult to counter.