Great Britain: The Final Fortnight

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With Britain's general election only a fortnight away, the major polls last week gave Prime Minister Harold Wilson's Labor Party an unprecedented lead-and increased the pressure on the Conservatives to find some issue with which to turn the tide. But Tory Leader Ted Heath was having a tough time.

For a moment last week, it seemed that he might have found an issue in the Common Market. A French official in London allowed as how France would now welcome Britain into the Common Market, provided, of course, that Britain met the Six's conditions. It was hardly anything new, but it gave Heath an opening. "If I were Prime Minister," he thundered at a hurriedly called press conference, "I would send my Foreign Secretary to the Continent at once to explore this new opportunity." He then demanded to know what was being done by Wilson, who has never been very enthusiastic about British membership. Replied the Prime Minister coolly: "One word from the French government and the Conservative leader rolls over on his back like a spaniel."

Diversified Attack. There was little doubt about who had won that exchange. Heath has seized on other issues only to see them fade either because of voter indifference or because of Wilson's refusal to take the bait by arguing back. As a folksy gimmick, Heath reduced his attack on Wilson's economic policies to an arithmetic formula: 9-5-1. The nine stands for Britain's soaring 9% wage increases in the past year despite Labor's pledge to hold down wages. The five stands for the 5% hike in prices in spite of Wilson's pledge to enforce price stability. The one stands for Britain's perilously low 1% increase in productivity in the wake of

Labor's ringing promises to make British industry more efficient.

Next Heath tried to capitalize on the sensational news of a kangaroo trial of seven nonstriking workmen by strikers at a British Motors Corp. plant. He hoped to use the incident as an example of how badly the nation needs the trade-union reform plan that he is pushing. Heath even briefly postured as a British De Gaulle, characterizing the French President's NATO-wrecking as "helpful" and darkly warning Britain against too much dependence on the U.S. So far, none of Heath's attacks have scored.

Rag Market Treatment. Heath's failure to find an issue has only spurred him to try harder. Each day he hops into a helicopter or chartered DC-3 to commute to the hustings, gives as many as six or seven speeches, in between riding from place to place in a motorcade, often standing in the open sunroof of a campaign car to flash his smile at bystanders. In the process, he has shed much of his computerlike coldness. Each evening he crawls from pub to pub, swigging stout, shooting darts and talking politics before flying back to London.

Wilson has not had to work so hard.