From Britain’s Voters: A Major Surprise

ACROSS EUROPE, THE ANGRY VOTERS OF 1992 HAVE been mounting ballot-box rebellions against their governments. In France’s regional elections last month, the ruling Socialists won a paltry 18% of the vote. In Italy last week the Christian Democrats and their three coalition partners lost their governing majority. In Germany xenophobic rightists slithered into two state parliaments, breaking the single-party control of the Christian Democrats in Baden-Wurttemberg. The opposition Social Democrats barely avoided the same fate in Schleswig-Holstein.

But once again Britain refused to follow the European Community’s lead. The recession was as bad there as it was on the Continent, and British voters were just as disgruntled. Even so, at the end of a four-week election campaign, they still found the Labour Party and its leader Neil Kinnock unconvincing. They stuck with the Conservative Party of Prime Minister John Major, giving it a majority of 21 seats in the 651-seat House of Commons. The Conservatives took 41.9% of the popular vote, a slight decrease from the 42.3% they won in 1987, when Margaret Thatcher last led the party to victory. (See related story on page 71.)