Main Party Differences

Press, Volume CX, Issue 32321, 12 June 1970, Page 11

Main Party Differences

(N.Z.P.A. -Reuter—Copyright)

LONDON, June 11

Many British voters, and foreign governments, are finding it hard to pin-point the major differences between the Labour and Conservative Parties.

There is a shortage of conflicting issues, regardless of the thousands of angry speeches and clashing manifestoes of the two main parties.

The Conservative leader (Mr Edward Heath) says that there is an urgent need for a new style of Government. In a foreword to his party’s manifesto, “A Better Tomorrow,” he says: “During the last six years we have suffered not only from bad policies, but from a cheap and trivial style of Government.” The Labour Party manifesto argues that the Conservatives have always defended the power and privi-

leges of the few. It asks for a fresh mandate to continue the programme begun in nearly six years of Labour government. “It takes more than six years to modernise and humanise an advanced industrial country, and to move it on towards a new kind of greatness,” the manifesto says.

So much for what one newspaper describes in the case of both parties as their “marshmallow style of rhetoric.” What are the real differences? Basically, the Conservatives remain the party of free enterprise, advocating lower taxes and fewer government controls. Although Labour shed its Marxist image years ago, and is soft-pedalling further nationalisation, the Prime Minister (Mr Wilson) fights on a Socialist programme.

Labour’s manifesto says: “Without planning, with a return to the Tory free-for-all, people become the victims of economic forces they cannot control.”

On foreign affairs, the Conservatives fiercely oppose the Labour Government’s decision to withdraw all British troops from East of Suez by 1971. Mr Heath would also like to try to negotiate a settlement with Mr lan

Smith’s breakaway Rhodesian republic and favours the sale of British arms, now embargoed, to South Africa. Both parties support negotiations for Britain’s entry into the European Common Market—if the terms are right.

On the domestic front the main differences between the parties concern methods of taxation, and means to halt the wage-price explosion. “We will reduce taxation,” the Conservative manifesto says. “We will concentrate on making progressive and substantial reductions in income tax. These reductions will be possible because we will cut out unnecessary government spending, and because we will encourage savings.”

Labour leaders scoff at this approach as “dream-wishing." They say repeatedly that they inherited an £Boom deficit from the Tories in 1964, and that in the last financial year they built up a national surplus of £ssom. The Labour manifesto says: “The irresponsible tax bribes that the Tories now promise —and threaten—would wreck the economy. These crude electoral manoeuvres would cause raging inflation, be a recipe for economic disaster, be a signal for savage cuts in essential social services.” Mr Heath would abolish the

selective employment tax introduced by the Labour Government as a levy on employers in the service industries. Its aim was to redirect the the work force into industries aimed at the export market. The Conservatives tend to favour, instead, a value-added tax to provide revenue. This would tax the increase in value of a raw product after it had been processed for the retail market. Industrial strife has been a headache for both parties. The Government’s programme to control prices and incomes on a voluntary basis has failed so far, and Mr Wilson is demanding greater productivity to pay for higher wages. The Conservatives recommend legally-binding agreements between trade unions and employers in disputes endangering the national interest. They call for a secret union ballot and a coolingoff period of not less than 60 days. There are other differences—more of method than of goals—between the two parties. Both agree on the need for law and order, slum clearance, more and better housing, measures against pollution, and a compassionate and materialistically successful society.