How Kinnock Would Topple the Tories

...This is particularly true now that the smaller Liberal Party has seriously weakened the electoral prospects of the Liberal-Social Democratic Alliance by also going nonnuclear, to the anger and chagrin of its Social Democratic partner...

...Potentially even more damaging to Kinnock's chances is his defense policy, based on ideals rather than security considerations . It was a Labor government that turned Britain into a nuclear power...

...He has managed to override charges of "witch hunt" from the far Left, and to oust the leaders of the Trotskyite Militant faction from Labor's ranks...

...But if defectors from the Tories to the Alliance are driven back to the Tories because of their disenchantment with Alliance muddling, and if voters who might have backed Labor are dissuaded from doing so by a "protect Britain" campaign the Tories are sure to mount, Neil Kinnock may find that calling for "Freedom and Fairness" simply isn't enough to win an election...

...To begin with, he has overcome the widely held early impression of him as a political lightweight and a "Welsh windbag...

...The London Times waggishly rewrote the first two lines of the party anthem to read, "The people's flag is deepest pink./We're really nicer than you think...

...Benn's fellow parliamentarian Erich Heffer, who once hoped to be party leader in place of Kinnock...

...Labor was counting on the middle-of-the-road Alliance to take votes away from the Conservatives and thus help its own candidates squeeze through in tight three-cornered local contests...

...Long before that happened, the United States would give serious thought to withdrawing its 333,000 troops from Western Europe and relying for its security on (less costly) fortress America, perhaps encouraged by renewed detente with Moscow...

...Fascinating as the transformation of the Labor Party's image has been, and impressive as the early returns of the public opinion polls may be, tough questions are being asked about the depth of this new development...

...Keenly aware of this .Labor Party Leader Neil Kinnock is whipping his troops into shape for the coming struggle on the hustings...

...Ifheis to become prime minister, his Laborites must do more than take the odd parliamentary seat from their Conservative rivals...

...Infact, the party has been going out of its way to insist it will be able to live in harmony with the bankers and merchants of the City of London—once derided as the enemy of the people—and that its financial policies will be prudent and constructive...

...Not surprisingly, much of the party s rhetoric is currently directed toward challenging the notion that Labor, once in office, would be anything less than judicious in its economic programs...

...That might expose them to a last-minute currency collapse, government scandal or other serious political embarrassment virtually certain to produce disaster at the polls, without any opportunity to delay the balloting in the hopeofhaving the storm blow over...

...Of late, he has actually been trying to steal a Tory image by striking a patriotic pose, telling the recent Labor Party Conference, "I would be willing to die for my country...

...they must decimate the massive Conservative majority in the House of Commons...

...A year can slip by quickly in politics...

...There is no doubt that if Britain went nonnuclear on defense, other nato countries—notably the Netherlands, Belgium and Italy—would be tempted to do so and the pressure on West Germany to follow suit would be intense...

...The Western European countries, depending exclusively on conventional weapons for their defense, would be in a position analogous to that of prewar Poland, which was prepared to face German panzer divisions with cavalry charges...

...Several Democratic congressmen have echoed the warning, and defense experts here have also voiced their concern...

...Other prominent far Left personalities, like Ken Livingston, the former head of the Greater London Council, and David Plunkett, the blind leader of the Sheffield City Council, have now shifted ground for tactical reasons...

...It was a Labor government that agreed to having American nuclear missiles based on British soil...

...It is fashionable in some circles today, even among the Tories, to hate Margaret Thatcher as a person, not merely as a politician...

...His isamajortask...

...Social ownership" may sound better to some voters than " nationalization of industry," the critics continue, yet it amounts to the same thing...

...Further, Kinnock says a Laborite Britain would not expect to come under America's nuclearumbrella, but would remain in nato and strengthen its conventional military forces...

...Similarly, while the virtues of "socialism" remain part of the La-borite catechism, Kinnock and his team prefer these days to stress their goal of "Freedom and Fairness...

...Indeed, they have to achieve the most stunning political turnabout in Britain since the weary citizens here voted Winston Churchill out of 10 Downing Street in 1945, just after he finished leading them to victory over Germany in World War II...

...No longer does his party speak of "nationalization" of the British companies the Conservatives have been busy denationalizing...

...Lest anyone doubt that Labor's image at least is undergoing serious change, it should be noted that whereas the faithful still sing at conferences of keeping "the red flag flying," a red rose has officially replaced that banner of glory as the symbol of their party...

...but no one, no matter what their politics, thinks of Kinnock personally as anything other than a decent bloke...

...Secretary of Defense Caspar W.Weinberger and Assistant Secretary Richard N. Perle have warned that such a policy could undermine the existence of the Western alliance...

...That decision resulted immediately in a sharp drop in Alliance support, to judge from the public opinion polls...

...LABOR GETS A FACELIFT How Kinnock Would Topple the Tories BY NORMAN GELB London By law, Margaret Thatcher has until June 1988 to dissolve Parliament and call for new general elections in Britain...

...He thus stymied Militant plans to gradually dominate Labor as they have been able to dominate its local Liverpool branch...

...Recalling the damage done to the last Labor government by an epidemic of strikes, Kinnock has told British trade unions that times have changed—that he, not they, will run the Labor Party, and that it might adopt economic policies they do not entirely agree with...

...and United Mine Workers boss Arthur Scargill, who had tried to force Thatcher out of office through a year-long miners strike...

...Those relations were severely disrupted, and Labor's support was undermined, by the extreme Left's condemnation of the police as an occupation army...

...Failing to face this issue squarely leaves the party open to dark Tory predictions that a Labor electoral victory would lead to a general economic collapse in Britain and a run on the pound...

...Scargill has been discredited not only for failing to achieve his objective but for having fragmented, impoverished and emasculated his union in the effort...

...it talks, rather, of taking them back into "social Norman Gelb, The New Leader's regular London correspondent, is the author most recently of Scramble: A Narrative History of the Battle of Britain...

...ownership...

...Kinnock, by contrast, is and always has been a unilateral nuclear disarmer...

...He comes across now as a strong party leader who manages to exude both sincerity and cunning, and is witty as well as compassionate...

...In recognition of growing voter concern about the escalation of violent crimes, the Labor leadership is strenuously mending its relations with police forces across the country, too...

...But prime ministers rarely choose to serve out their full five-year terms before facing theelec-torate again...

...The USSR would then have the only nuclear weapons in Europe...

...In addition, he has neutralized such hard left personalities as Tony Benn, who sounds increasingly like a man living out a political fantasy...

...A study of the political leanings of prospective Labor candidates in the forthcoming election, skeptics note, indicates that should Labor win, the parliamentary maj ority in the House of Commons would be dominated by the hard Left—and electoral considerations would no longer inhibit it from pressing its policies...

...Is it merely cosmetic, a public relations exercise of the kind Labor previously shunned...

...Accordingly, the Labor Party is at present promising to destroy Great Britain's nuclear weapons when it comes to power, and to oust all American nuclear missiles from the country...

...They constitute what has been called the "cuddly Left," because of their willingness to lower their voices several decibels and stop pressing for extreme demands that might threaten party unity and scare off voters in the run-up to the election...

...Though Labor makes no secret of its intention to raise taxes for the wealthier tier of the population to finance increased pensions and improved welfare programs generally, Roy Hattersley, the shadow chancellor of the exchequer, studiously avoids soak-the-rich promises that have been a feature of previous Labor campaigns...

...Nevertheless, so monumental a coup for Kinnock is a genuine possibility, especially given the serious social and economic problems Thatcherite Britain is suffering...

...Kinnock is engaged in a vigorous, calculated attack to capture the middle ground of British politics, the only route to electoral triumph...

...But it still has not given hard-nosed consideration to the fact that before the country's wealth can be equitably distributed to the people, as the party proposes, that wealth must be generated in a highly competitive international climate British industry has not found very congenial...

...Itis likely, therefore, that Thatcher will dissolve Parliament early—next spring or next autumn, depending on when she deems the political climate most favorable for the Conservative Party...

...It is hard to see under what circumstances Kinnock's defense policy could be anything except a vote loser for him, much as Labor's confused defense policy at the last election was a vote loser for Michael Foot, the previous party leader...

...More striking, however, than Kin-nock's drive to seize the middle ground has been his success in uniting the party behind his leadership...