BRITAIN: 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."