Britain: Bad News for Wilson

Britons are disenchanted with Prime Minister Harold Wilson, whose Labor government is plagued by, among other things, rising unemployment and a foreign-trade deficit. Two weeks ago,the Gallup poll found that Wilson’s administration was the most unpopular British government since World War II. Last week the Daily Mail’s National Opinion Poll reported that if elections were held today, Ted Heath’s Conservatives would win by a 100-seat landslide. The results of two by-elections supported that statement. In the university town of Cambridge, the Tories recaptured a swing seat from Labor with a massive majority. In the London working-class district of Walthamstow West, once the constituency of former Prime Minister Clement Attlee, the Tory candidate won in a narrow upset. It was the first time that Labor had lost there since 1938.