Major Stumbles Forward

...To be sure, one encountered stories of hardship everywhere, and the longterm societal ailments—violent crime, drug use, rising health-care costs, racial tensions, educational shortcomings, a monstrous national debt—are daunting...

...It is not that they want the elections that Major threatened to call should he be defeated on the Maastricht vote...

...Cities, companies, and private and community organizations were energetically seeking ways to climb out of the doldrums...

...Today he is reviled as incompetent, even by some of the Tory newspapers that zealously supported him during the election campaign...

...The government, in these circumstances, appeared to lack the ability to formulate sensible new strategies and, perhaps more important politically, to stand by its old ones...

...In the House of Commons debates, John Smith, the newly anointed Labor leader, berated him with eloquence...

...It has indeed been a torturous autumn for the Prime Minister...

...As President George Bush painfully discovered, though, linking a domestic slump to worldwide conditions excuses nothing and mollifies no one...

...natural gas has become a cheaper fuel for Britain's electricity generators...

...Thirty thousand miners and innumerable workers in related industries were to be thrown out of work, some within days...

...On a recent visit across the Atlantic, I was impressed by the sharp contrast between the British and American attitudes during these hard times...

...Some here have complained that government mismanagement in privatizing Britain's electricity producers is the reason for the plight of the coal industry...

...The people feel that things have gone irretrievably wrong, that basic industries have succumbed to mismanagement and international competition, that the high unemployment inevitably will increase, that growing numbers of businesses will go belly-up...

...Among the rightwingers, Cabinet ministers Michael Howard and Peter Lilley are too lightweight, and onetime party Chairman Kenneth Baker is not greatly admired...

...She was tremendously unpopular across the country when she left office...

...The treaty provides for far-reaching economic and political integration among the member nations of the European Community...

...In the face of this dissent, Major held to his course...

...Moreover, unlike the United States, where the general perception appears to be that an extended cyclical trauma is plaguing the economy, in Britain the situation has developed an apocalyptic edge...

...Major's position, therefore, does not seem to be in immediate danger...

...Just how far their support has eroded was demonstrated clearly in the November 4 House of Commons decision to let the Maastricht treaty proceed on its way to Parliamentary ratification: Major won by a mere three votes...

...It announced that of the remaining 50 mines in Britain's shrunken coal industry, 31 would be shut down...

...There has been some talk of a possible Thatcher comeback...

...Its members no longer bother to conceal their disdain for him, and some are believed to be responsible for an "inside" newspaper report that claimed the pressures of his office have left him mentally incapable of performing his role effectively...

...It is true that few ever found him an inspiring figure, but last April, when he came from behind to win the general election, he seemed to have passed muster...

...He showed himself to be an adept political operator and a reasonable successor to the remarkable Margaret Thatcher...

...Voters in the States have held the Bush Administration to account for its do-aslittle-as-possible approach...

...Everyone realizes Labor would win a popularity contest if one were held in the current climate...

...He had insisted that reducing inflation and protecting the value of sterling were the keys to restoring British economic health...

...Cutting the pound free, the critics argued, would allow the Bank of England to lower the punitive interest rates that were throttling British business and driving countless families out of their mortgaged homes...

...The Conservative British government, by contrast, had calculated policies designed to pace an economic recovery by controlling interest rates, the value of the pound and other crucial economic factors...

...Then, suddenly, he retreated, but by that time massive, avoidable damage had been done...

...Indeed, there are doubts about whether he can long remain the occupant of Number 10 Downing Street...

...In Britain the mood is very different...

...Now the scheme is in tatters, and the Prime Minister is being blamed for that—and more...

...Pundits speak of stopgaps at best, not remedies...

...The problem is that no suitable alternative is evident...

...The wind is up," the London Times declared, "and the Prime Minister is twisting in it...

...The previously quiescent Labor Party tore into the Prime Minister...

...It all called to mind the sentiment movingly expressed in the late '30s by Thomas Wolfe: "I believe we are lost in America, but I believe we shall be found...

...But there was an underlying sense of confidence that even the toughest problems are surmountable...

...The former Prime Minister could quickly renounce her recently acquired peerage in the House of Lords and return to head the government, but that is considered improbable...

...Nonetheless, much will depend on how he handles the waves of bitter discontent certain to be stirred in Parliament and around the nation by planned publicspending cuts, and by the increased real estate taxes due to replace the hated poll tax...

...Norman Gelb writes regularly for The New Leader on British affairs...

...Despite the business downturn in the States, and the wretched consequences for millions of individuals, ideas were in the air about how to restore what people continue to call the American Dream...

...Whatever the cause, even the Tory Parliamentarians joined in calling the closings reprehensible and idiotic...

...The decision was not without economic logic...

...To the Opposition's further delight, the fuss over the ERM reversal barely had subsided before the government dug itself into a new hole...

...The Conservatives' increasingly outspoken Thatcherite right wing would have preferred him to go...

...Although the move was necessary, it was politically embarrassing...

...Perhaps worst of all, to paraphrase Ronald Reagan's comment about Bush, no one knows anymore what John Major stands for...

...The Prime Minister has sought to put them in an international context...

...The mines will remain open while their viability is reviewed publicly, as should have been the case to begin with...

...Thus he adamantly rejected popular, Parliamentary and media pressure to withdraw the currency from the European Community's Exchange Rate Mechanism (ERM...

...If the smallish Liberal Democratic Party had not backed him, he would have lost, and might have felt obliged to resign...

...Despair is ubiquitous here...

...No British leader has fallen so low in the public's estimation since opinion polling began here...

...When a mass rally (one of many) in support of the miners was held in the fashionable resort town of Cheltenham, Major awkwardly backed down once again...

...The effect of all this on the Conservative Party has been devastating...

...Still, the idea that the once vital industry?King Coal" to bygone generations—was going to be effectively eliminated, taking with it many dependent towns and villages, came as a shock: There had been no preparation, no discussion, no public consideration of alternatives...

...Many Tories, profoundly fearful that Britain's sovereignty will be surrendered to unaccountable, irresponsible foreign Eurocrats, decided to resist the strong government and party pressure to side with the Prime Minister...

...Few Tory MPs are still willing to utter the typical avowals of full confidence in their leadership...

...Foreign Secretary Douglas Hurd and Home Secretary Kenneth Clarke, both popular politicians, are more pro-Maastricht than Major and therefore are anathema to the Europhobe Thatcherites...

...The winter ahead looks no easier...

...The country's widespread and deeprooted economic tribulations account in great part for the Major government's precipitous decline...

...They want the Prime Minister to simply step down, so that the Tories could choose another of their own to replace him...

...All the government can do competently," the devoutly Tory London Evening Standard said somewhat inelegantly, "is ineptitude...

...The Observer, appalled by the dim prospects for economic recovery, lamented that Britain was "staring into the abyss...