Wakie, Wakie!

At 6:30 a.m. one day last week, a Tory Party worker drove his sound truck through the sleepy streets of London's suburban Thornton Heath, roused the neighborhood by trumpeting through his loudspeaker: "Wakie, Wakie--up you get --and up the Tories go."

Up, indeed, the Tories went. In the last major election test before next year's general elections, they inflicted a stinging defeat on Britain's Labor government, which was still sore from the beating it took at last month's London County Council elections and other county contests (TIME, April 18). All week, on successive voting days, 7,000,000 Britons went to the polls in Britain's first district and borough elections since 1947. All week, the chant of London newsboys sounded to Laborites like the voice of doom. "Socialists lose 15 towns . . . Sweep takes Stoke-Newington . . . Birmingham captured."

After their long political catnap, the Conservatives were at last thoroughly awake, worked harder than Labor to get out the vote. By week's end, the Conservatives had captured a prize beyond their fondest hopes: they had chalked up a net gain of 829 seats, while Labor had lost 633. The Tory tide swallowed Wandsworth, Ernie Bevin's home borough, and Herbert Morrison's own stamping grounds of Lewisham. The Conservatives registered big gains in London's working-class Hammersmith and Holborn districts. Moaned one Labor official: "It turns our stomach."

Conservative Party Chairman Lord Woolton hopefully called last week's voting "a miniature general election." Jubilant Conservative politicians flatly predicted a Conservative victory at the national polls next year. Nevertheless, both sides realized that less than two-fifths of Britain's electorate had voted, that local contests do not necessarily forecast the country's attitude in a national election. Said a railway worker in Streatham: "Yer can't judge by local elections. They vote against you if they don't like yer face."

The elections still were a heavy blow to the Labor Party. Coming on top of the rebellion in Labor's London fortress last month, they furnished impressive evidence that the Tories had found their feet, that the Socialists faced the battle of their lives in the general elections next year. Said Labor Party Secretary Morgan Phillips in sour understatement: "Let us face the facts. [The] results are disappointing."

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