PERSONALITIES, NOT ISSUES, RULE ELECTION

Press, Volume CV, Issue 31020, 28 March 1966, Page 15

PERSONALITIES, NOT ISSUES, RULE ELECTION

GV.Z. Press Association—Copyright)

LONDON, March 27.

Britain’s General Election campaign enters its final phase tomorrow with the Labour Party leader, Mr Flarold Wilson, still a clear leader in the “personality stakes,” after fighting off the handicap of a heavy cold.

In spite of slight inroads made on Labour’s lead by the Conservatives, the image of the party’s 49-year-old leader, Mr Edward Heath, remains low throughout Britain, according to the nation’s pollsters.

Dubbed as “abrasive” and a “man of action,” by the Conservatives' campaign council, Mr Heath seems to have failed to display a personality strong enough to overshadow that of the Prime Minister—called “The People’s Harold” by one leading magazine. Now with only four days to polling day. observers from both leading parties say the “Americanisation” of this election is becoming increasingly apparent. Party policies have tended to mean less to the electorate as a whole and the cult of the party leader has become the overriding concern. Labour is apparently ready to exploit the personality issue strongly in the final campaign days. From tomorrow, apart from his speaking engagements and television appearances, Mr Wilson will personally conduct his party’s daily press conferences in London. Final Impact

Although, Mr Heath has been doing this since the start of the campaign, Labour publicity directors feel that Mr Wilson’s impact will mean even more because it is confined to the final few days and not spread throughout the whole of the campaign.

Today, the election’s major issues remained unchanged. They were the state of the British economy and the strength of the £, the country’s decision to enter the Common Market, the Rhodesian dispute and the purely local issues of welfare, housing, union control and industry.

Both parties were claiming victory. Labour’s deputy leader, Mr George Brown at his party’s press conference yesterday predicted a “comfortable” victory to his party.

The Chancellor of the Exchequer, Mr James Callaghan said Labour would have a “working majority.” Slight Slide

Mr Heath, with the latest opinion polls showing a slight slide in his. favour, predicts a Conservative victory.

The polls, which at the start of the campaign showed a Labour lead over the Conservatives as high as 15 per cent, now show a more modest margin of between, 8 and 10 per cent. Conservatives have been worried that the polls, whici consistently forecast a Labczr victory of up to a 200-seat majority in the House of Commons, would turn many swinging voters away from them. They have urged the country’s 35,000,000 voters not to pay any attention to them. Both parties agree that the more than 100 marginal seats, scattered from Southern England to Scotland, will decide the fate of the ejection. National swings in strong Labour seats in the north do not matter, Labour admits, as the seats are safe anyway. Therefore attention has

centred on the South-east, where the swing to Labour has been only about 3 per cent, and the Midlands, where the positions of both parties remain almost stationary.

Both pollsters and surveys by party officials show that marginal seats in Birmingham, which swung less to Labour than the rest of Britain during the 1964 election, are still in the balance. The South-east could bring a slight strengthening of the Conservative vote.

A Labour win at this stage

of the campaign seems inevitable, with estimates of seat margins in the House of Commons varying from 15 to 70. The fate of the minority Liberal Party with its Parliamentary membership of 10 is uncertain. Both Labour and Conservative spokesmen have said they expect to “pick up’’ the Liberal vote. Conservative canvassers are telling voters that to support a Liberal candidate is a “negative” attitude. In spite of this, the Liberal leader, Mr Jo Griraond, is confident that the party will at least “hold its own,” and may in fact pick up a few extra seats. The polls have shown that the Liberals are in fact gaining slightly in popularity as the campaign enters its closing stage.