Breakthrough

The alliance scores a first

It had been a little-noticed constituency in a fading area of South London, but last week the voters put Croydon (NorthWest) on Britain's political map. For the first time, a candidate backed by the alliance between the Liberal Party and the new Social Democratic Party (S.D.P.) took on Labor and the Tories. When the count was in, the alliance candidate had won a stunning victory, taking 40% of the vote, vs. 30.5% for the Conservatives and 26% for Labor. "We have split the old party system wide open and shown there is a real alternative," insisted William Pitt, the victorious Liberal candidate. Pitt (no kin to the 18th century Prime Minister) had lost in the constituency three times before. With his triumph, declared S.D.P. Leader Shirley Williams, "we have broken the credibility barrier."

Even before the campaign began in late summer, far more was clearly at stake than one parliamentary seat. For the Tories, who had held the constituency since 1948, the election was a mini-referendum on Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher's hardline, rightist economic policies. Given the government's low standing in the polls, moreover, it was an election that Labor, bedeviled with internal problems of its own, could not afford to lose if the party were to retain its standing in opposition. For the recently created alliance, the race was the big chance. Victory for Pitt offered the untested Liberal-S.D.P. coalition the prize of becoming a genuine new force in the center of Britain's polarized politics.

Croydon was a good battleground. The electorate covered a wide spectrum: working-class flats, a few affluent neighborhoods, and street on street of red brick houses occupied by skilled workers and low-level managers. For weeks, the big names of all three parties, including former Tory Prime Minister Edward Heath and Labor Leaders Michael Foot and Denis Healey, campaigned hard for their candidates. Although Pitt had earlier refused to stand down in favor of Shirley Williams, he was supported by the S.D.P.'s top team--William Rodgers, Roy Jenkins, David Owen and Williams--as well as by Liberal Leader David Steel.

Bolstered by its first victory, the alliance campaign caravan is moving on to the Liverpool suburb of Crosby, where Shirley Williams will stand in the next by-election later this winter. If Williams can win in another traditionally Tory constituency, the S.D.P. bandwagon may really begin to roll. -

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