WILSON’S WARNING

Press, Volume CXV, Issue 33963, 2 October 1975, Page 15

WILSON’S WARNING

‘Winter will be harsh’ (NZ Press Assn—Copyright) BLACKPOOL, Oct. 1. The British Prime Minister (Mr Wilson) has warned Britons that they face a harsh winter, and that there can be no question of expanding Britain’s sagging economy until inflation is beaten. In a keynote speech to the Labour Party’s annual conference, he said that the world was just beginning to emerge from its worst recession since the ’3os, and that Britain’s inflation — at present 27 per cent — was twice that of any other country Earlier, the Left wing of the party had ousted the Chancellor pf the Exchequer (Mr Denis Healey) from his seat on the policy-making national executive committee, in favour of the Leftist, Mr Eric Heffer. Mr Healey has become unnopular with the rank-and-file of the Left because of his firm counter-inflation policies. Mr Heffer has become a symbolic figure for the militant Left since he resigned last spring over his outspoken opposition to Mr Wilson’s nolicies on British membership of the European Economic Community. Mr Healev was unmoved by his defeat. “If vou are steering a ship through a typhoon, passengers who don’t like to be seasick sometimes blame the navigator.” he told a television interviewer. “I’m not too worried about it.” Mr Healey again rejected trade union calls for import controls, maintained that Government spending could not be increased without higher taxes, and said that there would have to be strict control of public spending to find the money to regenerate industry.