SDP: no room ror complacency

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Rodgers claims good results. But the SDP lost 49 seats.

by Nigel bv Nigel Williamson IT WOULD be hard to pretend that the locai election results on May 6 were good for Labour. Not to win control of London boroughs like • Wandsworth and Hammersmith was disappointing; to lose control in places like Lothian and Walsall was disastrous.

However, a very large crumb of comfort is to be found in the almost total annihilation of the Alliance, and in particular, the SDP, who fared far far worse than even the poor showing of their Liberal colleagues."

While the Liberals gained 160 seats, the SDP had a net loss of 49 - quite some achievement for a party that did not even exist last time round, and so had few seats to lose.

The SDP/Liberal Alliance does not now control a single local authority anywhere in Britain. The Liberals were turfed out in Liverpool, could not win an overall majority in Richmond, and, most dramatically of all, of the 25 seats they held in Islington by defection, they could only retain one by election.

In other words, the realignment of the right has flopped. Undoubtedly the Malvinas crisis had something to do with this: on that we can all agree with Bill Rodgers. But it is pathetic and disingenuous of him and other SDP leaders to claim that these results were somehow good for the SDP.

Yes, they can look to increased percentages on previous Liberal votes, but the fact is that if the SDP cannot win now, at the height of their media coverage and novelty, they will never win anywhere.

Many of the "political virgins" , as the SDP leadership refers to them somewhat patronisingly, will now drift out of politics and back to the obscurity from which they came.

They had genuinely convinced themselves that all they had to do was to be good and nice and all things to all people and they would sweep the board. Many of them will be dispirited and disillusioned to such an extent that they will be unable to cope with their pletely.

However, it may be premature to bury the SDP completely, although they can certainly stop talking about forming *the next government.

But they may still remain a threat in that a small rump of SDP MPs could form a coalition with the Tories or forge an informal alliance with right wing Labour MPs to block legislation on, for example, from the EEC.

So there is no room for complacency. If the electorate rejected so-called "moderation" in the form of the SDP and right wing Labour control in Birmingham, it also rejected more progressively-minded Labour policies in places like Brent, Lambeth, Lothian and Walsall.

The most important factor in this must have been the Malvinas. While not lookLONDON Labour Briefing is organising a "down-to-earth working conference on Saturday June 19 around a statement signed by a number of candidates, many of whom are now successful Foot: imperialist stance ing for one single scapegoat the weak, decrepit and clapped out leadership or lack of it from Michael Foot with its national unity appeal actually gave credence to those who perceived the election as an opportunity to cast their vote in support of the "national war effort"

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catastrophic defeat and will quit the political stage com-