U.K. LOCAL ELECTIONS Labour-held Towns Slashed To 26

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 31984, 10 May 1969, Page 13

U.K. LOCAL ELECTIONS Labour-held Towns Slashed To 26

(N.Z.P.A.-Reuter—Copyright) LONDON, May 9. Conservatives have dealt the ruling Labour Party another series of hammer-blow defeats in the municipal elections in England and Wales. Socialist bastions in towns and cities throughout the two countries fell yesterday in a sequence of disasters for the already battered Labour Party, which now holds only 26 towns. Results made known early today after yesterday’s voting showed that Labour lost over 600 borough council seats, reducing their over-all representation to well below 3000.

There was one consolation for the Prime Minister (Mr Harold Wilson), however: Sheffield, the steel town, was recaptured by Labour only a year after a sensational Tory victory had interrupted 40 years of Socialist control. But there was nothing else to cheer Mr Wilson and his Government, and Tory leaders promptly renewed their demands for a General Election. The Conservative Party ehairman (Mr Anthony Barber) said: "These massive na-tion-wide gains are once again a total repudiation of Labour policies. Surely Mr Wilson will now heed the will of the nation.” But a Labour Party spokesman commented: “We are not surprised at these results. These are some of the 900 seats we won in the landslide of 1963. We do not take local elections as a fair barometer of what would happen in a General Election.” Altogether, Labour lost 12 of the remaining 38 munici-

pal boroughs it had held in the face of growing Conspr- ' vative power in Britain’s town halls in recent years. Yesterday’s results capped a series of municipal elections that have virtually put the local government of the nation in Conservative hands. Welsh Nationalists did not make a good showing, repeating the failure early this week of the Scottish Nationalists north of the Border. And the Communists gained only one seat in yesterday’s poll. Borough Losses Labour lost: Barry, Dewsbury, Doncaster, Eccles, Hartlepool, Hemel Hempstead, Hull, Middleton, Pontefract, Radcliffe, South Shields, Swindon and Pendiebury. The Doncaster defeat ended 25 years of Labour control. The Tories had sweeping gains in industrial Lancashire —the county in which Mr Wilson and two of his Cabinet Ministers, Mrs Barbara Castle and Mr Anthony Greenwood, have their Parliamentary seats—taking control of the Eccles, Heywood and Accrington councils. In the major northern cities of Liverpool, Manchester and

i Leeds, .the Conservatives re- > mained firmly in control i There was no voting in London yesterday. 1 The Cabinet will today des fend its proposed strike-curb b legislation in a show-down - meeting with the Labour Party’s national executive. t The confrontation high- - lights a 1 widening split in the s Socialist ranks over the Gov- - ernment’s determination to act toughly towards wildcat I strikers. > In advance of today's conference, the Cabinet, in a significant gesture, reaffirmed its loyalty to Mr Wilson. This . unanimous declaration came , last night at a time when a ! shadowy group in the almost- . demoralised Labour Party was ( said to be plotting Mr Wil- . son’s downfall The Prime Minister’s make- . or-break decision to reform the trade unions received a > boost today from the unions I themselves. The powerful . Trades Union Congress, ret presenting nine million work- , ers produced its own formula ' for trade union reform. J Until now, the union chiefs , have either been openly hos- . tile or completely silent on the Government’s attempt to ; bring order, into Britain's I strike-caused industrial chaos. The Trades Union Congress, traditionally the Labour Party’s largest single prop, plans to forestall strikes by having a greater say in local disputes before they get out of hand. The T.U.C. formula, to be considered by delegates before a conference with Mr Wilson on Monday, is, however, unlikely to be tough enough for the Government, which wants financial penalties for unofficial strikes whose walk-outs close down industries and make other workers idle.

But the unions' willingness to try to. put their own house in order might help the Government reach a face-saving compromise. At present, Mr Wilabn says that either the proposed

. Is -measure goes through Parliament or the Government will resign and call a General Election.