By A Nose

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SURE, THE INCUMBENT HAD ENjoyed unbeatable popularity ratings during the gulf war. But with the guns long since quieted and East-West tensions laid to rest, voters no longer cared about his performance abroad. They were too busy fuming about the recession at home and looking for someone to blame for the greed spawned by the conservative revolution of the '80s. They wanted to talk about domestic issues: health care, education and, of course, jobs. To distinguish himself from the perceived heartlessness of his predecessor, the incumbent called for a kinder, gentler nation. It was a nice touch, if somewhat undermined by the negative campaign tactics he used to needle his main challenger, a hardworking and agile -- maybe too agile -- politician who called for "change" at every turn and struck voters as not entirely trustworthy. The race was a cliff-hanger right up to election day . . .

On that day -- take heart, George Bush -- British voters defied the pollsters' predictions and returned Conservative leader John Major to office by a small but respectable majority. Fears that the election would produce a hung Parliament in which no party commanded a majority proved unfounded: of the 651 seats, the Tories managed to hold 336 (down from 369); Labour took 271 (up from 229); and the Liberal Democrats stayed almost the same at 20, with the remainder going to smaller parties. While Major hailed the Tories' fourth consecutive electoral win as "a magnificent victory," in fact it was a non- loss that more aptly reflected voters' disenchantment with the political alternatives than an embrace of the Conservative agenda. The 101-seat majority the Tories held after the last election in 1987 shrank to 21. Still, Major is expected to preside over a stable government that will serve out its full five-year term.

Disillusioned with the Conservatives, but in the end even more distrustful of Labour, most voters probably would have preferred to check a box marked FED UP. That puts Britain on the same political map as much of Western Europe and North America, where a fragmented vote is steadily chipping away at ruling- party majorities. On both sides of the Atlantic, voters have been seized by a throw-the-bums-out fervor that is confounded by the lack of attractive alternatives.

Given the nature of the victory -- a far cry from the comfortable majorities commanded before voters turned against the Thatcher Revolution -- the Conservatives plainly were not handed a mandate to forge ahead with a program that has plunged Britain into its longest, deepest recession since World War II. Rather, the Tories can only conclude that they remain more trusted than Labour to curb 9.4% unemployment, high interest rates and the spate of business bankruptcies and closures. Ultimately, Labour's attempts to convince voters that it had shed its socialist spots failed. The party's renunciation of its old high-taxing, free-spending habits were offset by promises to shore up education, health care and other domestic programs, which Britain's largest accounting firm calculated would add $47 billion to the national budget.