BRITAIN: The Left Jerks on Labor's Reins

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By the time Callaghan took the podium in the Brighton Center, the fight was all but lost. The hall bristled with hostility as he rose to speak. Unruffled, the former Prime Minister delivered a dignified defense of his record: "I claim without apology, I claim proudly, a fine record of manifesto achievements carried out by a minority government." The blame, he implied, lay with the winter of strikes and labor unrest that had set the national mood for the Tory victory. He concluded with a call for unity: "Let's avoid party-bashing among each other. Let's have a bit of Tory-bashing for a change." The plea drew a tepid response.

Callaghan, 67, took his setback philosophically. "My mind is quiet," he later said privately. He promised his inner circle that he would stay on as leader at least through the 1980 conference in Blackpool.

But with Callaghan's authority now seriously damaged, potential successors are already jockeying for position. His own favorite is former Chancellor of the Exchequer Denis Healey, who bravely defended Callaghan in Brighton as the party's "greatest asset." But if the leftists succeed next year in gaining control of the selection process—as they nearly did last week —the front runner will be Tony Benn.

A 54-year-old aristocrat, who disclaimed his title in 1963 (and later shortened his name from Anthony Wedgwood Benn), he was weaned on politics. At Oxford, where he received an M.A. in history, Benn was president of the select Oxford Union and a masterly debater. He won the first of his twelve elections to Parliament from Bristol South-East in 1950 and served in several Labor Cabinets.

Benn's politics veered toward the radical left about ten years ago, when he embraced a Fabian socialism tinged with Marxism. Once coy about his ambition to become party leader, he recently declared that he "would like very much to be elected to that office."

At Brighton his mere appearance on the dais sparked more spirited applause than Callaghan's best lines had received. Speaking in a sibilant, upper-class accent, his cricketer-pink cheeks crinkling with earnestness, the former viscount called for bold economic and social reforms and vowed to wage "a tremendous battle" against "decaying capitalism." One hint of policies to come under a future Benn government: a conference vote in favor of renationalizing —without compensation—the industries that the Thatcher government is partially selling off to the private sector.

In an eleventh-hour bid to rally the demoralized moderates, former Education Minister Shirley Williams, who lost her parliamentary seat last May, exhorted them to "stand up and start fighting for yourselves!" Though it was too late to beat the leftists at Brighton, the moderates have now established a so-called Committee for a Labor Victory in an effort to regain control of the party. Meanwhile, both sides of the mangled party will be fighting each other as well as the Tory government, which could only cheer Prime Minister Thatcher. As the conservative Daily Express wryly noted, "With enemies like that, who needs friends?"