No Clear Advantage In General Election

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30559, 30 September 1964, Page 5

No Clear Advantage In General Election

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ALAN MITCHELL,

~ N.Z.P.A. Special Correspondent]

LONDON, September 29.

i/T'h 6 & enera l attitude here seems to be that Wilson is a sitter to win the General Election,” says a recent letter from New Zealand.

It is only fair to say that this was also the general attitude in Britain until a few weeks ago. It is no longer so today.

Although many people profess not to be influenced by

the public opinion polls they are the main indication of the trend of public feeling. Today all three, now including the Gallup, show that if Mr Harold Wilson is sitting pretty it is pretty apprehensively. What he, and everybody else, would like to know is just how many “don’t knows” or “undecideds” there are in the country, what percentage of them will vote, and how they will vote. One poll gives the “don’t knows” as 21 per cent, another 17 per cent, and the third 11 per cent Continued Guessing With just on a fortnight to go to polling day there can only be continued guessing !as to just how many “don’t knows” there are in Britain, and how many of them—if they do decide to know—will actually turn out to vote on October 15. Even the weather on that day could influence the result. One of the main facts about the campaign at the moment is that it is now Mr Wilson rather than Sir Alec DouglasHome who is on the defensive. The general impression is that while both are getting in the occasional telling shot at this stage of electioneering they are saving most of their powder until the last few days.

Certainly this is accepted in the case of the Labour Party which considers that it fired off too many guns at the start of the 1959 campaign and petered out towards the finish. Mr Wilson has therefore taken over the direction of the Labour campaign himself and the holding of daily news conferences. He will loose off his main barrage as and when he thinks fit, keeping in touch with Mr George Brown and others by telephone.

The Conservatives are directing their campaign rather differently. Sir Alec Douglas-Home still has to run the country as Prime Minis-

ter, and his occasional time in London is taken up at 10 Downing street. The main direction of the Conservatives’ attack is in the hands of Lord Blakenham, the party chairman, Lord Poole, deputy chairman, and Mr Reginald Maudling, Chancellor of the Exchequer, and others. Point of Interest A point of interest is that the Conservatives will be subject to a cross-fire—from the Liberals as well as Labour. Mr Jo Grimond, the Liberal leader, while he professes the greatest contempt for “the Socialist Party which no longer stands for socialism” has made it clear that he will make the Conservatives his main target. This might help Labour. All three leaders are now hammering home their respective policies, attacking and counter • attacking on coloured immigration and rates of interest on house mortgages for example—and the main issues are expected to become more sharply defined during the next two weeks. Meanwhile the psephologists are hard at work with their figures. It is estimated, by the “Times” for instance, that only 23 marginal seats in Britain hold the key to power, and that for Mr Wilson to sit pretty Labour needs a swing of from 3 to 4 per cent—a “swing” representing the average of the percentage by which the , Conservative and Labour vote in a constituency goes up or down. To win these 23 seats, says the “Times,” Labour needs a swing of from 3.1 to 4 per cent. The majority of these key seats have usually been held by the Conservatives. If the “don’t knows” in them range from 11 to 21 per cent—and the polls only generalise about all seats—there is plenty to come and go on.

The most that can be said at this stage is that neither Sir Alec Douglas-Home nor Mr Wilson is sitting pretty. The trend of the polls for the last month has been toward Sir Alec Douglas-Home, and it is anybody’s guess whether it will level off or be reversed.