BRITISH VOTERS DEAL WILSON A STIFF BLOW
By Brian Gormley
The gravest blow since being elected to power was delivered to the Labour party April 13 when Labour control of county councils across England and Wales was reduced to a shambles. In all of England, Labour now controls only one county council -- Durham -- and two in Wales.
Its most serious defeat was in London, where Labour has held the county council since 1934. Here the party was reduced to a fraction of its former strength, now holding only 18 seats to the Tories' 82.
The average swing throughout the country against Labour was 12.9% of the vote. In parts of London, especially in the solid working-class districts in the East End (Hackney), the swing went up to 20.9%. In Islington, it rose to 26.6%. Even in Wilson's home riding in Lancashire, Huyton West, the percentage shift to the Tories was up by 21.8%. The total percentage of people voting was down in most places. Many Labour supporters abstained, especially among the working class, while the party's middle-class support tended to remain stable. Traditional Labour voters crossed class lines to vote for the Tories.
It is significant to note that the votes for the Communist party candidates remained static, or even decreased. In London they lost a third of their votes, polling 66,000 in comparison to 92,000 in 1964.
The hammering which the Labour party took is the first public demonstration by the mass of the British working class of its dissatisfaction with the Wilson government's support of British capitalism. Party canvassers report that they hadn't voted for Labour to get Tory policies of increased rates and rents.
Labour's “incomes policy" was the main irritant. "We are not voting for a government that's freezing our wages," election workers were told.
The sharpest criticism has come from within the House of Commons from Jim Dickens, Labour MP for Lewisham West. Speaking at Ruskin College, Oxford, he said the defeat "must be laid squarely on the played-out, deadbeat policy of deflation adopted by the government to appease the Bank of England and the City at home, and the International Monetary Fund and European central bankers abroad." He castigated the recent budget, which was presented in the midst of the elections, as "a bankers budget, which proposed to hand back £26 million a year to surtax payers while doing nothing about child poverty."
He stated that the government's "contemptible support" for the bombing of Vietnam had knocked the stuffing out of Labour party workers.
Everyone is aware of where the responsibility for the debacle lies. Even the right wing expected their support to be down. But no one predicted, even on the left, such an avalanche of opposition votes.
The election defeat has had a stunning impact upon the Labour party itself, especially its vast bureaucracy, a great proportion of which was embedded in local governments around the country. It has also put a scare into the British bourgeoisie that Wilson might be stampeded into abandoning his economic policy and the general rightward course of the government.
The Guardian, in an editorial on April 15, was quick to warn: "If the government is convinced that its policies are right, it would be gravely mistaken if it panicked now and allowed itself to be blown off course."
More specific advice is given by James Magrach, a leading political columnist for the Sunday Times. Commenting upon the effect the defeat will have on the Labour MP's, he stated: "The more panicky troops are already evincing symptoms of shell-shock as they groped for their Friday trains to home. And Mr. Wilson knows, from his own past, the cynical reality. There is never any gratitude in politics when the chips are down. The Prime Minister is probably also going to learn the loneliness of the long-distance runner.
"This situation," he went on, "will call for a pronounced change in technique on the Prime Minister's part in the months to come. This is the time for the velvet gloves, for cosseting [pampering] the doubters and the fearful without making any real concessions."
It is obvious that Wilson and the Labour brass will attempt to "play it long." But whether he can do that without making major concessions, or even causing a major crisis in the party remains to be seen.
No matter what happens, the stage is being set for a major revolt at the next annual conference in October, bringing to a head the already latent devisions inside the party on the right's east-of-
Suez policy, the prices and incomes policy, the "wage freeze" and support for American actions in Vietnan.
In the coming months local elections will be taking place throughout the country. If the trend continues, Labour will lose eight cities -- Liverpool, Bristol, Nottingham, Leicester, Bradford, Newcastle, Aberdeen and Dundee. On the basis of the swing, Leeds, Manchester and Glasgow are now in doubt.
Can Wilson "play it long" without paying a terrible price? Can he stick to his dogma, enunciated to a Labour party audience, in Fulham last Saturday? Defiantly he stated, "to trim national poli-
REPORTED GUERRILLA ACTIVITIES
There have been persistent reports of guerrilla activities in Brazil since the military coup d'état April 1, 1964. Some have been unconfirmed; others indicated only the involvement of very small forces. In addition, the military brass have consistently denied that anything worth bothering about has occurred.
Nonetheless the very persistency of the reports has led to some uneasiness in ruling circles. On April 18 it was announced that the minister of defense, General Aurelio Lira Tavares, had been cies to short-run electoral considerations would be a betrayal of our responsibilities to the nation."
Because of the shakeup, it is possible that the biggest opposition in the history of the party will be formed and it is certain that the constituency parties will be in a state of revolt. Not only has the right wing's policy proved to be bankrupt in meeting the needs of the British working class, but they now are shown as lacking in popular support.
It's this latter aspect which the Labour leadership has been using to justify desertion, even of official conference resolutions.
DISTURB BRAZILIAN CONGRESS
asked to appear before the Brazilian