A Rout of Sorts

So slim is Prime Minister Harold Wilson's margin in the House of Commons that the slightest setback to his Labor Party's fortunes sends psephologists excitedly to their charts and Tory planners jubilantly to their megaphones. So it was when voters in hundreds of towns and cities went to the polls to choose new borough councilors. The results sent thrills up the spines of every Conservative, for Labor lost 419 seats, the Liberals were ousted from 213, while the Tories gained 562.

Labor leaders found solace in the fact that municipal elections do not always reflect national sentiment. Richard Crossman, Minister of Housing, noted that the government had had to do a great many "unpopular things in order to repair a long period of damage" under the Tories. Labor's austerity program had resulted in higher interest rates on loans for housing and cars, and a rise in local taxes. In view of last week's defeat, many thought that Wilson almost certainly would avoid the headlong rush into a general election that many of his supporters were proposing, instead would choose a more propitious occasion in the fall.

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