Britain’s alliance leaders face formidable task

Press, 21 May 1987, Page 31

Britain’s alliance leaders face formidable task

By

MARCUS ELIASON

of Associated Press London In a country where the two-party system seems as firmly entrenched as afternoon tea, David Owen and David Steel face a formidable task. But as leaders of the Social Democratic and Liberal parties that make up Britain’s Centrist alliance, this unusual pair thinks it can transform British politics into a three-way race. No-one expects their alliance to win power outright from the Conservative Party under the Prime Minister, Mrs Thatcher, or to surpass the main opposition, Neil Kinnock’s socialist Labour Party. The hopes of the Liberal leader, Steel, and the Social Democrat, Owen, are pinned on a hung Parliament, in which neither big party wins a majority and the alliance becomes power-broker.

“The two Davids,” as they are known in political shorthand, were born just three months apart in 1938 — Dr Owen is 47, Mr Steel 48 — and both entered Parliament before turning 30. Dr Owen is best remembered abroad as the young and handsome foreign secretary of the 1977-79 Labour Government. With Andrew Young, then United States Ambassador to the United Nations and now Mayor of Atlanta, Dr Owen went to Central and South Africa seeking a deal to end war and white-minority rule in Rhodesia. It earned Dr Owen, who is a nonpractising physician, the title of “Flying Doctor.” But the diplomatic prize of securing Zimbabwe’s independence went to Mrs Thatcher’s first Administration. Mr Steel, a Scottish churchman’s son, has never held a Cabinet post. He heads one of the two big parties that regularly

governed until Labour eclipsed the Liberals after World War I. Dr Owen was elected to Parliament while practising medicine and writing research papers on neuropharmacology. Mr Steel came to politics after working as a reporter for Scottish television. A Foreign Secretary at 39, Dr Owen looked set for a shot at the premiership. But in 1981, disgusted with Labour’s soft approach to militant trade unions and its hostility to nuclear weapons, he and three other former Cabinet Ministers quit Labour and formed the Social Democratic Party. The alliance with the Liberals was forged in September, 1981. In the 1983 election it polled a quarter of the vote but got only 23 seats in the 650member House of Commons. This time, Mr Steel and Dr Owen hope to persuade enough voters that Britain is a three-party country and that the alli-

ance is here to stay. They say neither Labour nor the Tories are wrong all of the time, and that the alliance offers the best policies,of both. They are for taxing the rich more heavily, but also for a capitalist economy. They support private medicine and schooling while remaining committed to welfare. They are for Britain having nuclear weapons, but think it can manage with fewer. They openly admire Mrs Thatcher’s leadership qualities, but fault her for being a divisive personality. Where Mrs Thatcher is all combative selfassurance, Dr Owen uses a physician’s bedside manner that exudes calm and trustworthiness. Where Mr Kinnock comes across as aggrieved social agitator, Mr Steel, a television virtuoso regularly rated in polls to be Britain’s most likeable politician, projects an air of objective authority.