Jenkins and Owen vie for Britain’s S.D.P. leadership

Press, 30 June 1982, Page 28

Jenkins and Owen vie for Britain’s S.D.P. leadership

NZPA staff correspondent London The 65,000 paid-up members of Britain's Social Democratic Party are voting in what has been called the strangest political contest of recent times. At stake is the party's leadership, sought by two members of the “gang of four," who have been running it collectively since it was founded last year. They are the former Labour deputy leader. Mr Roy Jenkins, and the former Foreign Secretary. Dr David Owen. Officially, there is no conventional campaigning in the three-week election and the contest formally opened and closed with the posting of a 750-word statement from the two contenders to party members with their ballot papers. But both Mr Jenkins and Dr Owen are appearing in television interviews and at party meetings originally arranged before the election was announced. Although they both started off treating the election in what has been described as “a highly dignified manner," political commentators are now predicting there will be a lot more ‘‘rough and tumble” before voting ends on July 2. Already there are signs that the contest is warming

up. with suggestions by some of Mr Jenkins’s supporters that Dr Owen would split the S.D.P, from its liberal partners in the S.D.P.-Liberal alliance after the next General Election. This has been firmly denied by Dr Owen, who insists that all he has said is that the Liberals and Social Democrats could safely run against each other under a system of proportional representation. “I have never doubted the need for the Social Democratic Party to establish a good working relationship with the Liberal Party ...” he said in an article in the “Observer” at the week-end. “I want us to work very closely with the Liberals while retaining our own distinctive identity.” The Liberal leader, Mr David Steel, while remaining aloof from the S.D.P. leadership contest, has already made it clear that he would be willing to serve under Mr Jenkins as Prime Minister of an alliance government. But a win for Dr Owen is seen as likely to result in Mr Steel’s making a bid himself for leadership of the alliance when a decision is made later in the year. Mr Jenkins, who is 61, and who returned to Westminster in March, after an absence of five years when he was

president of the E.E.C.. was seen as front-runner for the S.D.P. leadership once he captured the Glasgow seat of Billhead from the Conservatives in what was, for him. a crucial by-election. But the stocks of Dr Owen, aged 43. have risen during the Falklands crisis as a result of what were seen as his statesmanlike speeches in the House of Commons. As leader of the S.D.P. member of Parliament and spokesman on foreign affairs, it was Dr Owen and not Mr Jenkins who spoke from the front Opposition bench in the Falklands debates. At times Mr Jenkins, who once addressed Parliament from the dispatch box as Labour Chancellor of the Exchequer and Home Secretary, even found himself squeezed out of the front bench below the gangway where S.D.P. leaders have to jostle for seats with several Labour Left-wingers who take a delight in grabbing them first.

Mr Jenkins’s supporters are reported to be concerned that his chances in the leadership contest have been damaged by Dr Owen’s role as spokesman on the Falklands. One of them, Mr Tom Ellis, M.P., warned party members that they must not turn .the ballot into a “khaki election” and allow Dr Owen

to be elected as the result of an “emotional spasm." But. the Falklands aside. Mr Jenkins is seen by some commentators as having been unable to live up to the expectations which accompanied his return to parliament. “He looks a little uncomfortable. a little lost in a chamber he once dominated at will." the “Western Mail" politicial correspondent. David Hughes, wrote recently. “His contributions have been workmanlike, no more. Hughes said: “The suspicion grows that while Jenkins may have been a genius in government, in opposition he is at sea, and simply cannot handle the rather rougher lifestyle that accompanies lack of office." But, against this, Jenkins's supporters point to his vast experience in government — he was widely regarded as one of Britain’s best post-war Chancellors — and as president of the E.E.C. They also argue that Mr Jenkins, having won his seat in parliament under the S.D.P. colours, has stronger claims to the party leadership than Dr Owen, who was elected as a Labour member, and then defected to form the S.D.P. with fellow former Labour Ministers, Mrs Shir-

ley Williams and Mr William Rodgers. Mrs Williams backs Dr Owen for the leadership and Mr Rodgers is for Mr Jenkins, with other S.D.P. members fairly evenly divided. Dr Owen, first elected to Parliament at 26 and Foreign Secretary at 38, has a reputation for being arrogant and abrasive. ‘■From the cleaner to the top officials. I have never known a man so hated,” a former Foreign Office man was quoted as saying in a "Sunday Times” report. But Dr Owen is said to be distressed and puzzled by this reputation which he says is greatly exaggerated. “Those who worked closest to him say the kindest things about him,” his former political adviser, David Stephen says. “It was those who saw him little who thought he was outrageous.” Dr Owen is seen, as the man more likely Io win votes from former Labour supporters, while Mr Jenkins, who says it is a long time since he used the . word, "socialist,” is considered more successful in wooing erstwhile Tory voters, as he showed in Hillhead. Dr Owen pledges that the S.D.P. will tread'“a new and different path between the cynical and sentimental in British politics. Mr Jenkins, who believes the political effect of the Falklands has been “heavily distracting,” says the historic role of the, S.D.P. and the alliance is to push the Labour Party out of the arena of government and become the effective alternative to the Conservatives. The 65,000 or so S.D.P. members are now being asked to decide who is the best man to achieve this.