TIMING AN ELECTION THE CALENDAR IS GAINING ON BRITAIN’S PRIME MINISTER

Press, Volume CX, Issue 32209, 30 January 1970, Page 12

TIMING AN ELECTION THE CALENDAR IS GAINING ON BRITAIN’S PRIME MINISTER

• By

H. B. BOYNE,

political correspondent of the -‘Daily Tclcoraph ”, London.

(Reprinted from the "Daily Telegraph" by arrangement >

The Prime Minister (Mr Wilson) constantly tells us that he makes a point of keeping his options open. Those who accuse him of indecision and procrastination implicitly acknowledge the truth of the claim However there is one thing which inexorably closes all options: the calendar Mr Wilson must be uncomfortably conscious of this as Parliament reassembles

Some time within the next 64 weeks he has got to call a General Election. A week, to cite another of his favourite maxims, is a long time in politics. But the weeks slip by with almost incredible speed especially at Westminster, where it is nearly always later than one thinks’ So it may not be very long before Mr Wilson begins to feel that the calendar is gaining on him.

As be would doubtless cheerfully remind us, he has been through it all before. The decision which faces him is, however, in some respects more difficult than it was last time.

No-one could then deny him the credit of having sustained a Labour Government for a full session on a majority never bigger than four. From about the beginning of 1966 most indicators suggested that Labour would win an early General Election, and the Hull by-election at the end of January handsomely confirmed this impression. Mr Wilson had nothing to lose by taking the plunge, as he did on February 28. Practically all the advice he had received from colleagues and party managers was in favour of “getting it over.” Had he insisted on holding on, only to be defeated a few months later at an election forced by circumstances beyond his control, such as the simultaneous deaths of two or three Labour M.P.s, he would have been saddled with all the blame. So the choice was in reality pretty easy.

A Different Situation The situation today is rather different. No-one in the Cabinet or at Transport House shows the slightest inclination to share the burden of decision. Like every other lobby correspondent, I have discussed election timing with many Ministers. Invariably they speculate on when “he” will go to the country, never "we.” A mere matter of idiom, but significant of the loneliness of command when things are going badly. As, of course, they are for ’Labour, despite the “economic miracle” of a phenomenally strong balance of payments and a few months’ good trade figures. You cannot ignore the Government’s, continuously dismal byelection record, which so far gives no real cause to believe that the rot in public esteem has been stopped. Nor is there any prospect of a Parliamentary crisis which could take the decision on the election date out of Mr Wilson’s hands. For all the by-election reverses, he still has an absolute majority of 65 in the Commons. As it has never fallen to danger level, even on statutory wage controls, one is entitled to assume that there is no conceivable issue on which Labour’s so-called “rebels” will turn the Government out.

It is even said that the Leftwingers have their own unofficial Whips, bent on ensuring that abstentions, while spectacular, do not accidentally become lethal. In any case, they are clearly going to be given very little cause to revolt between now and the dissolution. Adopting Harcourt, the Cabinet, with the possible exception of Mr Roy Jenkins, could chorus “We are all Left-wingers now.” P.M.’s Options To return to Mr Wlison’s options, the range is a little wider than is generally summed up in the phrase “this spring, next autumn, or the spring of 1971.” Consult the records, and you will find that General Elections since 1900 have been held in every month except April, June and August. October, with five, has been the outstandingly popular choice; but there have been three in December and two each in January, May and November. Mr Wilson rather prides himself on doing the unexpected. I feel sure that in his reckoning no month is ruled out except August. Even he would not incur the obloquy of holding an election when several millions of potential voters, not to mention a large proportion of returning officers and other indispensable functionaries, were away from home. With that proviso, one can say that the open season, so far as Mr Wilson is concerned, will begin on February 16. the date on which the new electoral register, including the 18-year-olds and upwards enfranchised for the first time, comes into force. The freshness of the register is one reason why Labour party managers, given the chance, would normally opt

[for an election in spring or early summer. They are unhappily conscious of being much less efficient than the l Conservatives in following up removals and organising postal votes. The older the; {register, the more important' this troublesome chore be- : comes. Confidence Unshaken So one can be pretty certain that if Mr Wilson does not go to the country by late autumn he will be strongly dissuaded from doing so until March, 1971. I am even more certain, however, that there is only one consideration which could induce him to delay the election until then; namely, an absolute conviction that Labour is going to lose it He is very far from having I reached that point yet In fact, his unshakable confidence, now spreading to party workers who previously sneered at it, infects one with just a scintilla of doubt that the Conservatives will win. If this makes some of their constituency associations appreciate that they will have to fight extremely hard to gain the necessary 65 seats, so much the better. Make no mistake, it will take some doing. Mr Wilson, who resents being classed as a shortterm tactician rather than a longterm strategist, professes to have privily chosen the date of the next election the day after he won the last one. I dare say he did fix a target area; I dare say he still has it in mind; and I’d be inclined to bet that it is Octo-ber-November, 1970, the last real “option” if he is to avoid being pushed up against the five-year wall. He has always maintained that he will not repeat what he considers to have been Sir Alec DouglasHome’s fatal mistake of digging in for the full term, {with all power of manoeuvre gone. This time there is the additional handicap of decimal coinage in February, 1971. Initially, at any rate, the new currency will pre-occupy, confuse and irritate the country, and the party in power will certainly incur a backlash of disfavour. Council Elections Mr Wilson’s autumn target does not, however, prevent him from sighting on earlier ones. His diary, I fancy, is apt to fall open at the second week of April. The county council elec-

’lions begin on April 6. The next day, a Tuesday, might ibe appropriate for the kind of expansionist, give-away 'Budget which the T.U.C. is : [angrily demanding from a ■ Chancellor described in one of their union journals as "a ■; dyed-in-the-wool squeezer ‘and freezer.” Such a Budget | might be just the tonic Labour needs for the Greater . London Council election on . Thursday, April 9. Having presumably reached ■ their nadir three years ago, i Labour candidates seem i bound to win some seats in London. To my surprise, I . find that shrewd judges in . the party do not entirely ex- . elude the possibility of regaining control. They set : great store by council tenants, fuming against higher ; rents. The chance of sacking , a Tory councillor who has ■ actually cost you money is , certainly a powerful induce- ■ ment to go to the poll. i Victory in London would be : a tremendous morale-booster I for Labour supporters every- ’ where. Mr Wilson would be . under strong temptation to • cash in immediately; there ■ would just be time to get the ■ General Election over before the borough council polls on I May 7, and no politician is better equipped by temperament and mental agility for a lightening campaign. “Mights” And “Woulds” There are many “mights” and “woulds” in this theory; but these auxiliary verbs are inseparable from all electoral speculation. The moral for Tories is that they must strive to hold London, while bearing in mind the not so very remote eventuality that another and even tougher contest could follow at once. No-one, surely, is going to ' be lulled, not to say gulled, 'by the Prime Minister’s waffling on television about the job that remains to be done, this session’s massive legislative programme, the exigencies of the Parliamentary timetable and so forth. Let him only scent an election success on the'wind and Parliament can be wound up within days. Of course it would mean losing Bills, chief among them the Crossman scheme for earnings-related pensions. That particular loss would be borne with fortitude, one might even say relief, by many people who vote . Labour, not excluding some of Mr Crossman’s fellowMinisters.