Three Out of Four for the Tories

"I think this is a pointer," said Prime Minister Sir Alec Douglas-Home triumphantly, "that we will do well in the autumn." At the very least, it was a pointer that a great many journalists and pollsters had been dead wrong about the Tories' political position. Defending four Conservative constituencies in by-elections this week, the party had been told by virtually everyone that it was in for trouble. At best, it was expected to hold the two safest of the seats, and some thought that the Tories might lose all four. Instead, Labor managed to win only one. The four battles:

>In Devizes, a sprawling, largely rural community in Wiltshire, Labor was heavily favored because of a recent influx of 4,000 industrial workers. It was widely admitted that if the Tories could win here, they would have a real chance in the fall. As it turned out, the Labor candidate, a Bristol schoolteacher, was defeated by Etonian Charles Morrison, 31, who talked welfare issues, visited old people's homes and was aided by no fewer than 14 relations, including his charming wife Sara ("I know you won't believe a word I say about him, but . . ."). More help came from eight Tory backbenchers calling themselves the "S O S" (for "Save Our Seat") squad.

> In Bury St. Edmunds, in the farm country of East Anglia, Conservative Eldon Griffiths, 38, beat out Labor's Noel Insley, another teacher, even though Insley's own determinedly optimistic poll forecast a clear-cut Labor victory. A correspondent for TIME and Newsweek before he became a speechwriter for the Conservatives, Griffiths was accused by Labor of feeding the Prime Minister uncharacteristic lines full of unfashionable alliterations: on one occasion, Home had referred to Harold Wilson as "this slick salesman of synthetic science." Griffiths, however, proved himself a slick and energetic salesman of Conservatism. Drawing on his experience as a pig farmer, he spoke tirelessly about practical issues (agriculture, housing, jobs), got up at dawn to help the stableboys at Newmarket exercise their horses.

> In Winchester, in Hampshire, a stronghold of Conservatism and site of one of Britain's best public schools, Rear Admiral Morgan Giles, 50, won as expected from Laborite Patrick Seyd, 23, a teacher at Southampton's redbrick university. Though he lost, Seyd had a good time proclaiming the injustice of the British public school system, which heavily favors the rich and socially prominent, advocated more scholarships to schools like Winchester.

> In Rutherglen, outside Glasgow, Laborite J. Gregor Mackenzie, 36, a Glasgow city councilman, won over Iain Sproat, 25, a journalist of whom the New Statesman wrote: "If he was any further to the Right, he would be in the North Sea."

While the three Tory successes were impressive, the Laborites managed to narrow the Conservative 1959 margins of victory: from 7,962 to 2,459 in Bury St. Edmunds, from 3,838 to 1,670 in Devizes, and from 12,792 to 6,064 in Winchester. London's bookmakers made only a minor change in their forecast for the general election in October; they dropped the odds a point, still favoring Labor, 3-1. But the Tories felt more hopeful than they had in months. A sizable number of voters had, after all, accepted the Tory line, which essentially came down to this: things are good enough right now, and you can't be sure what Labor will do if it gets in power.

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