World Notes BRITAIN

The Labor Party has lost three consecutive elections to Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher's Conservatives, and one big reason is the opposition party's stand on defense issues. Surveys show that Labor's promise to give up Britain's nuclear deterrent unilaterally is unpopular with nearly 70% of Britons, and even gets a thumbs-down from a majority of Labor supporters. Last week Party Leader Neil Kinnock announced a change of heart. British disarmament, he said, should be accompanied by Soviet concessions.

Kinnock attributed his switch to the progress toward nuclear disarmament made by Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev. "We would be complete fools" to ignore that fact, he said. Conservative Defense Minister George Younger ridiculed Kinnock's new policy as "totally inadequate." Labor M.P. Eric Heffer, a veteran left-winger, charged Kinnock with "backsliding" and moaned that "my worst fears are coming to fruition."