BRITAIN'S LOCAL ELECTIONS
White, Donald
Britain's Local Elections County, City Votes Knock Labor Down, But Not Out By Donald Whits New Leader Correspondent in Great Britain Strati's "little General Elec\ Hon* is over. As hundreds...
...The Liberal campaign is certain to cause the Tories to lose seats running up into two figures...
...e • TraatlsesWe east knlnojlnn prohmd fee ISaVfM'fsMaWet...
...The first enthusiasm of victory had waned a little, the Tories had ralUed tank forces, and food cuts had whittled away some of the Government's support In the autumn of 1#47 another onethird of the council seats outside London were contested...
...had it done as well in April, it would have returned a comfortable majority to County Hall...
...Second, the voters at local elections include a large number who are primarily registering a protest vote...
...In Britain, as elsewhere, the higher the poll, the greater the proportion of progr e s s i v e votes...
...Labor woke up too late to take effective counter-action...
...The Communists threaten to place a large number of candidates in the field, but everyone doubts that they can find the money...
...Labor has had much more trouble with Parliamentary by-elections in London than outside...
...This weakness was evident in the April election for the London County Council, which produced a dead heat between Labor and the Tories...
...Officially, Labor Party headquarters predict a majority of at least 60, and perhaps as much as 150...
...Members of municipal councils serve for three-year terms...
...In the London boroughs, there has been a loss of 263, but this of course represents the cumulative effect of the three and a half years since'1945, when the last London borough elections were held...
...a) e> ufe^rft*-- OMrasaBT"onpewews « sf"swe"aua"»ei f w 1 Morris I, Clremfstgp...
...The county council is, outside London, the unit of government in which the public takes least interest...
...It has been evident for some whBe Chat the London party machine of Labor was running down, as a result of the inertia induced by fifteen continuous years of power...
...The steps which were finally taken to ensure Labor control of the Council were far more reasonable than those originally proposed, and met with the approval of Sir Percy Harris, the Ion* Liberal on the Council and no friend of Labor...
...Another third of the seats outside London were involved—and in addition, for the first time since 1945, all the London borough seats...
...The general trend of economic and political affairs in the world and in Britain will have its impact, but there is obviously much that depends on the party organizations themselves...
...Much will depend on what happens in the meantime...
...Parliamentary candidates must put up a $600 deposit, which they forfeit if they fail to get as much as one-eighth of the votes cast, and there are only a handful of constituencies where the Communists can do this with impunity...
...Local pride tends to focus on the municipal council...
...Outside London, 432 seats have been lost, as compared with the 644 of 1947...
...To the rest of the world they are a symbol of a growing concern, • * • Those Senators who are reluctant to asm the signatories of she Atlantic i Pact ate meet iinesasnnsade...
...the possible Labor losses as a result of Communist intervention can be counted on the fingers of one hand.* Communists were routed in the municipal elections, and one of their two M.P.'s lost his seat on an East End borough council...
...The local elections should be a healthy antidote to the over-eonftdenoe which suffused much of the Party apparatus and blunted its cutting edge...
...Sinee then Labor has' had its...
...Labor lost ground, but much less than in the County Council elections...
...Even in 1947, most seats Labor was defending had been won before the war...
...The first elections under the new arrangement were those this year...
...It is now generally recognized that many local Labor Party organizations #are caught napping in the county elections in April...
...To understand them, a few facts concerning their framework are essential...
...On both sides now, the tempo of political activity is steadily mounting...
...This year the Tories converted these lackluster elections into a plebiscite against the Government...
...They were unprepared for the vigor with which the Tories fought fheir campaign...
...The turning point came shortly afterwards...
...Labor gained again in 1946, when one-third of the seats outside London were at •take, but the victories were much less sweeping...
...The result, indeed, is likely to hinge on the dimensions of the Liberal vote...
...And this appears to be the meaning of the nation-wide local elections which occurred in April and May...
...Instead, they have been considerably less...
...Hie natural result was a spectacular triumph for Labor...
...Labor then was gaining strength, but had by no means 'overtaken the Tories...
...THE MUNICIPAL ELECTIONS in May, it is agreed, were a fairer test...
...All of them had been won in 1945, at the very crest of Labor's strength...
...Two further factors count in Labor's favor, so far as prospects for the coming national election are concerned: First, the turnout at national elections is of the order of 75 percent, compared with the 36 or 40 percent who customarily turn out for local elections...
...is a tribute te man's conquest of nature...
...The result was triumph for the Tories, and disaster for the Laborites—a net<Tory gain of 618 seats, and a Labor loss of 644...
...It is important to note what sort of seats Labor was defending...
...Laborites have perhaps leaked too much at she Tories inside Parliament where they are impasted and ineflactlve, and tee little at the ssneeshrunning ei action maohlne they have built up outside Lead Weefttan at the Conatcvattve Central Otfise has done a nweb bests* )es> skew Weaetan Churchill In Psstt Senear He wfif be the seen so head at the General Election...
...For both Tories and Laborites regard the coming national election as decisive for the future of Britain, and both, in the best traditions of vigorous British democracy, will do their best to win it PEN POINTS The Irishman who insists that Eire deep Enalkh in favor of Gaelic Is jNdaxing the lily...
...The secondstring leaders left at County Hall (since Morrison and his principal colleagues moved up to Cabinet office) were knocked off balance and made some foolish statements about their intentions...
...Many Conservatives who would normally have taken no interest in local politics have turned out to vote against Labor at Whitehall, particularly since the Conservative Central- Office had converted the local elections into a plebiscite on national Issues...
...ups and downs, but the general trend has been upward...
...Since 194S, perhaps 1 percent of Britain's voters have Shifted from left to right...
...Outside London, there are annual elections, at each of which only one-third of the council seats are open for contest As with our own Senate, terms of office overlap, so that two-thirds of the council members carry over...
...The councils in power at the end of the war were therefore, in their political composition, a reflection of the years just before the war...
...Their conclusions are less spectacular than the headlines...
...tor their part, the Tories were fflslWartened and disorganised by their loss of national Power...
...At*Grav«end Labor had lost the municipal election, but it came baek a few weeks later to win the Parliamentary by-election...
...privately, they would be willing to settle for thirty...
...The conclusion which emerges is: Labor is now weaker than in, 1945, but substantial!]/ stronger than in 1947...
...The first post-war local elections came in the autumn of 1M5, and covered all seats ln-the London borough councils, and onethird the council seats .outsid...
...Its deliberations lack the drama and significance of Parliament...
...They included many seats which had never before in history been taken by Labor...
...Halfway between the two,- the county council suffers from general neglect, best proved by the fact that the turnout at county council elections is lower than at any other British elections...
...One might reasonably have expected Labor losses this year much greater than those of 1947...
...Every one of them is likely to take two or three votes from the Tory candidate for every vote he takes from Labor...
...This is the result of an analysis of the voting at Parliamentary by-elections...
...For an* other, they have shown up specific weak spots which badly need reinforcing...
...During the war, local elections were suspended, and vacancies were filled by special elections...
...This is the per diet of the public opinion polls...
...In the 28 London boroughs, elections come every three years, and every seat is up for contest...
...IrriaaHan la aha aksaneest form of flnttmr...
...This was the very peak of Labor's poet-election( strength...
...The elections will not, however, be held today, but probably in the spring of 1950, or possibly in the fall of this year...
...In a national election they would consider more carefully whether things would be better or worse under a Tory government B"ut in local elections they could show their dlspleasure without threatening the survival of the Labor Government...
...THERE WERE NO local elections in 1948, because Parliament had decided that, in the future, they should be held in the spring rather than in the fall...
...It now controls 17 of the 28...
...THE BERT QUALIFIED OBSERVERS agree that as of today, Labor would win a «a- i tional election, but its Parliamentary majority would be greatly reduced...
...Paul Robeson is alone in believing that the Soviet concentration camps are the mark of a growing state...
...Some ordinarily Labor voters undoubtedly voted Tory this time, as a result of grievances about food, taxes, or prices...
...Evidence of this, and of a greater vigor in London's Labor machine, are the results of the May elections in London's 28 boroughs...
...This was the lowest ebb of Labor's popularity, an understandable consequence of the fuel crisis of February and the dollar crisis of July...
...As of today, the Liberal Party could put 300 candidates up in the 600-odd constituencies of the United Kingdom...
...When the Kremlin jockeys for position, you can rest assured their stalling does not make for a more stable world...
...As a matter of fact, man is she PinsjUsh they speak...
...As hundreds of , Labor members of county, municipal, and rural councils prepare to retire to private life, and hundreds of fresh Tories look fors/ard to assuming public office, the rxperts are busy - analyzing the figures...
...Hands i aniens she sen east mean nothing unless their arms ate sdeenats for the **** e e . 0 The devious moves of the Soviet delegation to the VN to delay a vote on the iatae of the denial of human rights in Bulgaria and Hungary do -not rnakt for peace...
Vol. 32 • May 1949 • No. 22
