Victory for the Center

By Mayo Mohs

Roy Jenkins wins, and the Social Democrats regain momentum

For 29 years he had been a Labor member of Parliament. He had served capably as Home Secretary and Chancellor of the Exchequer in postwar Labor governments, and had gone on to four years of distinguished duty as president of the Brussels-based European Commission, the executive arm of the ten-nation European Community. But from his post in Brussels he gradually became disenchanted with Labor's inexorable leftward drift. In 1979 he put forward the heretical proposition that Britain needed a new party of the center, occupying the middle ground between Labor and Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher's right-leaning Conservative government. Home again last year, he joined other like-minded Laborites, including former Foreign Secretary David Owen and onetime Education Secretary Shirley Williams, to form the new Social Democratic Party.

Last week Roy Jenkins reaped his reward. In a hard-fought, down-to-the-wire battle in the well-heeled but wary Glasgow constituency of Hillhead, he emerged with 33.4% of the ballot, 2,038 votes ahead of the second-place Conservative candidate. Jenkins quickly acknowledged the support of the small Liberal Party and its leader, David Steel, who cemented an alliance with the S.D.P. last September. The win, exulted Jenkins, was a "triumph of the new deal of sense, moderation and hope we have offered."

If that is true, British politics is in for a historic shock. Ever since party alignments emerged in the wake of the 17th century civil war, Britain's political battles have been basically two-party clashes--between Whigs and Tories in the 17th, 18th and early 19th centuries, between Liberals and Conservatives in the 19th and early 20th centuries, and between Laborites and Conservatives since then. Though the S.D.P.-Liberal alliance has only 41 mem bers in Parliament (twelve Liberals, 29 Social Democrats), including Jenkins' new seat from Hillhead, its prospects induced euphoria. "I want to offer a new choice to the people of Britain," said Jenkins last week. "If that means offering myself as Prime Minister, then I am willing to do it." With general elections due no later than June 1984, the new allies present a powerful third force.

Just how powerful is yet to be determined, since the appeal of the alliance has fluctuated considerably in opinion polls during the past four months. In December a survey by Market and Opinion Research International showed the Social Democrats riding high as favorites of 44% of the electorate. In early March, though, just after the Thatcher government had produced its something-for-everybody budget, the S.D.P.-Liberal share had fallen sharply to 27%, placing the party third after the Tories and Labor.

Jenkins' victory margin belied the close race that preceded it. Right up to election day, opinion polls gave him at best a slight edge over his rivals. In the end, it seemed, it was the sheer accumulation of smiles and shoe leather and handclasps that put him over the top. At times exuberant with enthusiasm, at other moments almost weighed down with weariness, the 61-year-old political veteran toured the streets with the doggedness of a fledgling candidate standing for his first seat.

Jenkins' strong opposition came not only from the two major parties but from the Scottish Nationalists, who favor outright independence and usually command 10% to 15% of the vote in the district. Bordering the University of Glasgow, Hillhead is the best-educated constituency in Scotland, a community that stretches from handsome, rosy sandstone houses on sloping streets to grubby shops near the River Clyde below. The Tories came in with an edge, possession of the seat for more than six decades, the past 33 years served rather lacklusterly by Sir Thomas Galbraith, who died last January. In his stead the Conservatives offered Gerald Malone, 31, a native Glaswegian, glib, vigorous and bluntly reactionary, who proposed using social welfare funds for buttressing law and order and called for the reinstatement of hanging. Labor's candidate was bearded portly Community Worker David Wiseman, 34, who became a creditable candidate after the party persuaded him to leave at home ther earring he customarily wore. Scottish Nationalist George Leslie, 45, was a popular local veterinarian who harped on the fact that Jenkins was an outsider from England.

In fact, Jenkins was born in Wales, the son of an ambitious coal miner who was later a Labor M.P. But to counter the carpetbagging label, Jenkins sounded a decidedly Scottish note in his campaign speeches as time went on. He pledged that he would spend "the rest of my political life" representing Hillhead, and that he would not dash away to a safer English constituency at the first chance to move south. He supported the granting of greater autonomy for Scotland, including the formation of a regional assembly with authority to tax and with substantial legislative power. Jenkins pledged his firm support of Britain's membership in NATO and the European Community. He opposed the unilateral disarmament movement that has been waging a spirited battle against the introduction of 160 new U.S. cruise missiles in Britain. To bolster the nation's sagging economy, he advocated a $7 billion budget increase.

Jenkins' allies vigorously threw themselves into the battle, realizing that a defeat for one would be a setback for all and would severely damage the party. Williams sounded a near apocalyptic note. Jenkins' success in Hillhead, she warned, was "the last chance for Britain to find a democratic, moderate but radical alternative to revolution."

To help Conservative Candidate Malone, the Thatcher government tried some canny pocketbook appeal from London. New taxes on alcohol, announced Chancellor of the Exchequer Sir Geoffrey Howe 16 days before the election, would fall more lightly on Scotch whisky than on wine. The government also issued a well-timed announcement that Glasgow's derelict Queen's Dock would be transformed into a $55 million industrial exhibition center.

As the votes were tallied last Thursday, it became clear that neither the unabashed pork barreling nor the charge of carpetbagging had succeeded. Roy Jenkins was Hillhead's man. The endless street work, the grace under catcalls and the sore hands had not only won the day, but might, in the future, prove a deciding factor in Britain's political fortunes. Within the next few weeks, the Social Democrats will poll their 78,000 dues-paying members on their choice for the party's permanent leader. The Hillhead victory should win Roy Jenkins the grateful support of his own brave new party.

--By Mayo Mohs. Reported by Bonnie Angelo/Glasgow

With reporting by Bonnie Angelo

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