Kinnock on the Defensive

...Former Labor Prime Minister James Callaghan and Dr...

...Those fears seem confirmed by the outcome of the recent parliamentary bi-election in the London borough of Greenwich...

...The teachers explained, again on the TV news, that they believed the children would be mistaken to think of the police as friends...

...Norman Gelb is the NL's London correspondent...

...It called for taking Britain out of the nuclear club, and for the U.S...

...Allegations of police brutality and racial prejudice (proved in some cases) have led to the establishment of "police committees" in many Labor-controlled Municipal Councils, some of which make no effort to conceal their dislike of the police in general...

...In the north London borough of Brent, a dedicated headmistress of a secondary school, who is very popular with her black and Asian pupils and their parents, was suspended after an unsubstantiated and strongly denied charge that she had said in a private telephone conversation that she did not want to hire any more black teachers...

...Thatcher's having brought about a distressing decline in the facilities available to the public under the popular and cherished National Health Service...

...Kinnock himself has felt obliged to caution his colleagues against open expressions of divisiveness and pessimism of the kind that contributed to the slaughter by the Tories in the last national election...

...The Loony Left's hostility to the police is yet another Labor Party burden...

...All in all, though, it is no mystery why the Labor Party Leader doesn' t smile so much anymore...

...Perhaps the Labor Leader and his advisers have decided that a man seeking to be the next British prime minister should project an appropriately solemn, controlled image...

...An issue personally affecting Kinnock is taxes...

...For the same reason, some hard Left Laborites publicly protested when a Labor politician appeared in a newspaper photograph with his wife and children in a happy family setting...

...It is an experience that must weigh heavily on Kinnock's thoughts, for hard Left candidates will be representing the Labor Party in many of the constituencies it has to win if it is to make a respectable showing on election day...

...Kinnock will be leaning on this fact as the election approaches...

...Kinnock is not one for pretense or affectation, however...

...Kinnock's press secretary, Patricia Hewitt, complained in a private letter leaked to the press: "The gay and lesbian issue is costing us dear...

...The transformation may be deliberate...

...There had beenachange of circumstances, not of policy, it was stressed...

...But the defense policy is not the only problem Labor has been facing...

...the Labor Party simply didn't want to do anything to disrupt the negotiations...

...The Tories are beginning to make some dent in that figure, but only marginally so far...

...His latest book is The Berlin Wall: Kennedy, Khrushchev, and a Showdown in the Heart of Europe...

...Her extremist credentials were widely publicized, and she was humiliatingly trounced by the voters...

...And he rarely indulges anymore in long-winded eloquence laced with the fiery righteousness and melodic inflections of his native Wales...

...His cause will be served, too, by Mrs...

...When the moderate Laborite representing Greenwich died, a hard Left candidate was chosen to fight to succeed him...

...He doesn't joke as much asheusedto.His face is less often creased by the easy, warm smile that was part of the Kinnock image...

...When asked whether a Labor government would revert to a unilateralist stance if the American-Soviet negotiations failed, party defense spokesman Denzil Davies said the situation would have to be assessed at that time...

...The largest increase, 65 per cent, has ironically been imposed in the London borough of Ealing where Kinnock lives with his family...

...Nevertheless, the impression that Labor hammers the taxpayer does him no good...

...Indeed, some senior Laborites are privately admitting their anguish at the prospect of yet another defeat for "the party of the people...

...The internecine row soon attracted such prominent press attention that Kinnock warned the party might need "someone else to set the example I have set," if discipline could not be restored...

...It remains uncertain when the elections will come...

...Clearly, Kinnock did not want the nuclear controversy to rend his party again before the balloting...

...The next highest, 49 per cent, has been inflicted by the Labor-controlled London borough of Fulham (where I live...

...He has replied with some justification that most of the additional local taxes will be properly allocated—to public housing improvements, better services for the elderly and handicapped, etc...

...Other than an inevitable restless desire by the electorate for a change, Kinnock's strongest campaign issue is the over 13 per cent unemployment level in Britain...

...Party moderates worry that unless the public's conception of Labor improves, it will continue to drift toward ignominious defeat at the polls...

...The image of a man who is beholden to wastrels, to irresponsible local politicians is one the Tories are trying to pin on Kinnock...

...cruise missiles based in this country to be sent home —whether or not the Soviet Union offered a quid pro quo...

...His new-found solemnity is more likely a result of the battering Labor has been taking of late...

...In East London, an association of Far Left elementary school teachers blocked a schoolroom presentation by police officers of a video designed to warn children against strangers who might molest them...

...Whatever thetiming, short of a catastrophic setback for the Tory government, there is now little chance that Labor will succeed in capturing Number Ten Downing Street...

...cruise missiles would not be driven out of Britain if he were elected...

...In many places, for example, they have given widely publicized support to gay and lesbian causes, allotting taxpayer money (albeit comparatively small sums) to homosexual clubs, celebrations, educational efforts, etc., while many other social needs go begging...

...The London borough of Islington ordered pictures showing men and women together removed from public library bulletin boards, because they were deemed to have a heterosexual bias...

...At a time when the Tory government is gaining voter support by cutting income taxes, some Left-controlled local Councils have been sharply increasing the property taxes they are empowered to levy...

...Localgovernment officials of the Loony Left persuasion have been engaging in campaigns that seem bound to cost votes...

...Besides causing great alarm among Britain's NATO partners, the policy forced one-time multilateralists like Labor foreign affairs spokesman Denis Healey and Deputy Leader Roy Hattersley to perform grotesque rhetorical contortions in explaining their support for it...

...John Gilbert, another senior party figure, unequivocally denounced Kinnock's defense posture...

...Other Laborites rushed to condemn the dissenters...

...Party moderates are deeply concerned about what they (and much of the rest of the country) consider the absurd shenanigans of their far Left, now commonly called "the Loony Left...

...Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher is expected to summon the British electorate to the polls this spring or autumn, although she might risk waiting until the last legal moment next spring...

...He has also moved to limit the impact of what was proving to be the most damaging issue within the party: aunilateral nuclear disarmament program that he proudly presented just a few weeks ago...

...Even Bryan Gould, the Opposition's recently appointed campaign coordinator, has conceded it is in trouble...

...To the Labor Party's distress, the headmistress had to engage in a protracted court case, closely covered by the television news shows, to restrain the Municipal Council...

...TheHouseof Commons seat there had been held by Labor for half a century...

...An adviser to the Labor Shadow Cabinet wrote in the London Times (and got sacked for doing so) that it required "the British people to believe six impossible things before breakfast...

...Finally, Kinnock recognized that the controversy could seriously harm Labor's election hopes, especially since real progress toward East-West nuclear disarmament was possible without unilateralist gestures, and he decided to wriggle out of what had become no more than an embarrassment...

...Almost as troublesome for Labor is the extreme Left's distorted approach to race relations...

...The formation of a black political caucus within the Labor Party, contrary to its constitution and against Kinnock's wishes, is similarly attracting the sort of publicity he could do without...

...The emergence of irate, protesting parents' groups in working-class districts of London where the issue has arisen is evidence that she is right...

...Realizing his threat could not do the party's image any good either, Labor flaks hurried to declare that he definitely was not thinking of resigning...

...Seizing upon encouraging developments in the American-Soviet nuclear talks, he turned about and agreed the U.S...

...In addition, Mikhail S. Gorbachev's seemingly generous multilateral disarmament offers made a mockery of the unilateralist approach...