Word: labourers
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LIKE THE GUY who paces anxiously around the dance floor waiting for his opportunity to walz in the center, the Alliance Party in Britain has been prowling the periphery of British politics for two years, hoping to come between the standard Labour and Conservative Party couple. This week the Alliance--a fusion of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) and the Liberal Party--may finally have gotten up the nerve...
...courage stems from Labour's biggest single election disaster in recent history and to the general confusion that has plagued Her Majesty's Opposition in the four years since Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher led her Tories back into 10 Downing St. Since the Thatcher victory, Labour has experienced both intranecine warfare and wavering leadership from its standard-bearer, Michael Foot. And in a South London parliamentary election Monday, that disorder left its mark. Bermondsey, an urban working-class district held by Labour for the last 60 years, fell instead to the Alliance candidate by a whopping 38 percent...
While the full ramifications of the victory will remain hazy until Thatcher calls general elections in the summer or early fall, the infant Alliance has definitely taken a big step towards its goal of supplanting Labour as the chief opposition party. After the election returns were announced, a London Times poll found that the Alliance had moved ahead of Labour into second place behind the Conservatives in public opinion (39 to 34 to 26 percent). With the general election so close, Labour officials may well be running scared...
Only two years old, the Alliance lacks the political machinery of the two more established parties and has beaten the Conservatives in only three contests so far. But in its short life it has established itself as a moderate faction between the Conservative and Labour extremes, maintaining liberal positions on domestic and foreign affairs and walking the thin line between Labour's increased spending for jobs and the Conservatives' tax cutting. It could gain even more ground if Labour continues its drift toward the far left and if the increasingly unpopular Foot remains at his party's helm...
ANALYSTS SHOULD PAUSE, however, before heralding the rise of a new power. The Alliance's Bermondsey upset can too easily be pinned on that election's idiosyncracies, notably the abrasive personality and campaign of Labour candidate Thatchell. Securing the nomination through the support of radical leaders in the local council. Thatchell loudly backed radical socialism, gay rights, and extraparliamentary opposition to the government; his opponents responded with death threats and allegations about his sexual preferences. In the wake of all the vitriol, Labour leaders preferred, understandably, to attribute the defeat to the "Thatchell Factor" rather than to any lapse...