Ted and Harold on the husting

In a six-story Georgian-style office building on London's Smith Square, Prime Minister Edward Heath strode into Tory Party headquarters to sound the keynote for his campaign for reelection. "It is essential to have a strong government which is firm but fair," he declared, picking up the theme of the Tories' 12,000-word manifesto "Firm Action for a Fair Britain." Across the square, Labor Party Leader Harold Wilson, in a rival press conference, tartly retitled the Tory manifesto "Infirm and Unfair." Slimmer than during his two terms as Prime Minister and reflectively puffing on a pipe, Wilson lashed out 'against inflation: eggs up 99% since 1970, cheese 78%, chicken 69% and bread will rise to just half a penny less than the celebrated "three-shilling loaf that Heath in 1970 had said would be the inevitable result if Labor were returned to power.

So it went last week as Britain plunged into another national election campaign, its ninth--and perhaps most crucial--since World War II. By American standards, it will be brief (three weeks) and cheap (each candidate, including the party leaders, is limited to spending $2,358). It will also be the first to be waged in the midst of a nationwide coal strike and a three-day work week. Yet the crowds have been polite and the campaigning has proceeded with a minimum of fuss. Both men motored without fanfare to their constituencies (Heath to Sidcup, a London suburb; Wilson to Huyton in Lancashire), speaking, shaking hands, and signing autographs with scarcely any security detail in evidence.

Britain's 270,000 miners began their strike at the same time that the campaign got under way, and so far the pickets have been as orderly as the voters.

After the National Coal Board warned that a third of the mines were endangered by flooding or underground fires, pickets allowed safety crews to go into the shafts for maintenance work. Nonetheless, the strike was effective. Britain's huge Transport and General Workers' Union threw its weight behind the miners by refusing to deliver coal to electrical generating stations.

Insidious Energy. Heath has centered his campaign on the miners' refusal to work until they get pay hikes of up to 30%, charging their demands are inflationary. "Inflation," declared Heath, "is the most insidious enemy a nation can face." He depicts the miners --and the Labor Party with which they are most closely allied--as controlled by militant leftists. A typical Tory television spot shows pound notes being flung at a miner's helmet. Then Heath appears, saying he has no quarrel with the unions, only with "extremists" who seek to bring down the elected government.

Extremists or not, the miners give no indication of halting their costly strike, meaning Heath will have to find more money for them if he is returned to office. Last week he ordered his Pay Board to get cracking on a possible settlement beyond the 16% increase the government has offered, whereupon Wilson accused him of asking for a man date to pay the miners after the election what he refused to pay them before. "For the first time in history," Wilson declared, "we have a general leading his troops into battle with the deliberate aim of giving in if he wins."

Slight Tory Edge. By and large, however, Wilson sought to steer the campaign away from the miners and zero in on Heath's overall economic policies, which he charged had brought the country "dangerously close to bankruptcy, industrial paralysis and economic ruin." His most telling salvo was aimed at the terms under which Heath negotiated Britain's entry into the Common Market, terms which Wilson promised to renegotiate more favorably. The Market is a sore point with many Britons because it prohibits importation of cheap Commonwealth food.

So far the Tories have a slight edge in the campaign according to three polls out last week, but no matter who wins the election, Britain faces tough times in the months ahead. It has been estimated that the three-day work week imposed two months ago to conserve coal has driven British industry from an annual $11 billion rate of profit to a $9 billion loss. Calling Heath's economic policies a "peacetime version of a scorched-earth policy," the liberal New Statesman predicted that many firms soon will go out of business, unemployment will soar, and the critical balance of payments situation will become "a nightmare." Said Historian A.J.P. Tay lor, whose English History 1914-45 is regarded as a contemporary classic: "I think we're in for something close to chaos here. Adam Smith said it takes a great deal to ruin a nation, but he did not allow for Edward Heath."

Not all economists blame Heath alone for Britain's economic failures. Since World War II, the country's growth has been much slower than its European neighbors; as a result, it is the first to show the strains of economic contraction, points out Andrew Shonfield, Director of the Royal Institute of International Affairs. But Heath is fault ed for his unsuccessful gamble for growth, which sent the trade deficit soaring to a record $5.1 billion in 1973. Inflation is now spiralling toward 15%, and it is certain to go higher with new oil prices. Gasoline rose 200 per gal. last week, bringing the price to $1.15.

The biggest question facing the next government will be how to finance the deficit without turning the pound into a banana-republic currency. As the conservative Economist magazine put it last week: "There is not just a whiff of Weimar in Britain. There is a smell of Argentina." Because of its rich coal and vast North Sea oil reserves, Britain is a good credit risk--provided it is willing to endure a period of austerity.

But austerity measures are something neither party likes to talk about in a campaign--and so far neither has. Heath is standing on his wage and price control policy. Labor has pledged to repeal tax rebates for the rich, impose price controls and nationalize North Sea oil. No matter who wins, however, the next government will almost certainly have to impose much more drastic measures: stiff cuts in government spending, tough new tax increases, a policy of slow-or no-growth.

Inevitably, the staggering problems that lie ahead and the battle weariness of leapfrogging from crisis to crisis have left many Britons with a deep feeling of ambivalence about the election. Said one British labor organizer: "It's the only election in 20 years I've felt this much uncertainty about. We're in a hell of a mess with what Ted's doing, but what's Harold doing to put it right?"

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