Fair Game

...Thatcher's ideological campaign...

...Utility charges, I was told, have doubled since the Arabs set to work on the West...

...She would then find herself in much the same position that Wilson is now: fingers crossed, grateful that another day has passed without catastrophe, hoping for a sunnier tomorrow...

...An economics writer in the Times sums up the situation: "There can now be no doubt that the severity of the present economic recession will be far greater than anything experienced in the past 35 years...

...Sales of clothing, cars, tobacco, and beer have fallen sharply...

...Chief proponent of this line is Margaret Thatcher, the new leader of the Tories...

...Conspicuous at the Labor conference were Leftwing opponents of the Labor establishment, who attacked Wilson and his allies for not pressing forward with new, truly radical programs in the furtherance of economic equity...

...A writer in the conservatively inclined Spectator comments: "Of course the Tories are opposed to nationalization, but there are no plans as far as I know to return any part of the public sector to the private sector...

...But Tories are divided about what their central purpose ought to be...

...His vision may extend no further than what will get his government through the day with the least commotion possible, but given the circumstances, that is no small thing...

...Unemployment is high and getting higher, while the Gross National Product keeps sinking...

...Thatcher to call for an end to socialism as it is for the dissident Left to call for its further advancement...

...In the main, this may be received as just noise, a luxury of the powerless...

...At the moment, it is as safe for Mrs...

...The British, those prodigious muddlers-through, will in all likelihood manage to live within their means and hold on to their inimitable institutions...

...What the public fears is that ousting Labor would disrupt the hard-won accord with the nation's trade unions to hold wage rises to a modest amount in an effort to stem the fast-moving inflation...

...The nation's morale is at a low point, without confidence in either party or faith in any of the putative leaders...

...She brought cheers from her troops by calling at the Blackpool conference for a return to free enterprise, individual initiative and other such virtues that we on our side of the ocean are accustomed to hearing about from Ronald Reagan...

...Thatcher, who is quite as practical a politician as Harold Wilson, would be hard-pressed on how to govern if fate were to remove her to Downing Street tomorrow...

...Implicit in this course is an admission of the justice of some conservative criticisms of Labor?but for the time being it will probably take a bit of the steam out of Mrs...

...We must hope so, and hope, too, that whatever the North Sea yields or fails to yield, Britannia will yield up a leader who can carry the country on to something better than passive acceptance...

...With salaries substantially below those in America, the British must pay twice what we do for gasoline and very nearly as much for food and clothing...

...Last month it was announced that the living standard of Britons, steadily on the rise since the end of World War II, will go down this year, probably by 4 or 5 per cent, and there is no reason to expect that this drift will not continue for several years...

...On the other hand, the unions cannot be too tough on the government, for a split in their ranks would be an invitation to a Conservative return to power with, perhaps, a franchise for a retreat from socialism...

...Everyone has a favorite villain, usually depending on political or metaphysical predilections—the capitalists who refuse to invest, the government which discourages capital accumulation, the workers who refuse to put in a full day's work, the bosses who are incapable of sensible planning, the drift of the world, the ironies of the gods...

...The New Standard Compared to the mood that prevails in Britain today, the mood in New York City is optimistic...

...Prime Minister Wilson's new economic plan, released early this month, signals a fresh emphasis on aid to Britain's industries at the inevitable expense of social programs...

...Like our own political conventions and fund raisers, they are designed mainly to hearten the faithful and send them home more eager to work for the cause than when they arrived...

...As things stand now, nothing the disgruntled Leftists say is likely to change matters by a jot, so they may say pretty much whatever they please, especially at party conferences, with no danger of actually having power thrust upon them...

...Although Wilson is not an inspiring sort of figure, his want of charisma is compensated for just now by his knack for making deals to meet the exigencies of the hour...

...The holiday abroad, the superior cut of beef, the occasional night out are barely reachable luxuries for much of the middle class these days...

...Thatcher, and no one rises to contradict her...

...So everyone hopes, but few seem able to believe...

...The New Tones There is an argument being made that Britain's present difficulties owe at least as much to socialist programs of the past couple of decades as to the price of oil, and that the times would not be propitious for further movements Leftward even if the government had the money or the ingenuity or the spirit to undertake them...

...For now British politics is stalled at dead center?but the kind of pervasive, vaguely focused discontent that can be sensed around the country has been known to breed a politics of desperation, and angry movements of both Right and Left are already making themselves felt, as indeed they are elsewhere in Western Europe...

...The Conservatives contend, unfairly perhaps but with undoubted impact, that British Socialism has had the effect of discouraging both investment by capitalists and honest labor by the working class, and has brought Britain to a state where it is unable to compete for markets with such countries as France and West Germany...

...It is understood that such ceremonies invite neither thoughtfulness nor candor...

...And a writer in the Leftwing New Statesman points out that the current efforts of Britain's Treasury men to prop up the pound and preserve London as a financial center for oil money, though no doubt necessary, are nevertheless incompatible with socialism...

...I have never known such a lack of confidence as now," says Mrs...

...Why are things so bad...

...Tories are in favor of making it possible to make big profits again and to get a return on your capital gain...

...But fate is not likely to play that joke on her soon...

...This sort of language marks a break with past Conservative leaders, from Neville Chamberlain to Edward Heath, who have tended to stand somewhat to the Left of their rank and file, and have in recent years collaborated to a considerable degree in blessing or cursing Britain with social programs...

...At worst, it is simple trouble-making by anti-establishment factions for whom Fabianism and indeed Parliamentarianism do not hold much charm...

...For now, Whitehall and Westminster seem in political paralysis...

...At best, it is prompted by an idealism that sees the good old socialist goals being lost in a quest for stability...

...As the Observer has observed, "Moderate Labor still holds up no vision for the future that might stir up the blood of the young...

...Perhaps the boon of North Sea oil will truly be realized by 1980, as promised, and perhaps that in itself will be enough to regenerate the British economy...

...Fair Game BY WALTER GOODMAN The New Britain On a visit to Britain a few weeks ago, I found the press taken up in large part with accounts of the conferences at Blackpool, first of the Labor party and then of the Conservatives...

...The Tories have no more coherent economic policy to offer the nation, though, than do the Labor-ites...

...The present ruling position of Labor has little to do with any illusion on the part of voters that Prime Minister Harold Wilson's plan for getting the country out of its economic doldrums will work...

...Labor's marriage with the trade unions, however, while it may produce a temporary stability, has its inhibiting side...

...The situation raises troubling questions of what the relationship between government and unions ought to be in a socialist commonwealth...

...The complaints I heard of the ascending cost and deteriorating quality of public transportation and the postal services made me homesick...

...Wilson's people are obliged to clear their every economic move with the major union leaders—not a condition to encourage moves that may be deemed a threat to the power or status of the union men...

...Neither party arouses much enthusiasm across the country these days, and since the Labor government seems able to keep a rein on the unions, its position seems secure for a while at least...

...Mrs...

...With land values in the stratosphere and the cost of a loan at 11 per cent, the purchase of a new home is out of the question for the great majority of families...

...Nonetheless, for a visitor the gatherings were instructive about the malaise that now afflicts British politics and British society...