Labour take heart from Ilford swing and attack spreading of ‘fear and prejudice’

After the Conservative victory in the Redbridge, Ilford, North, by-election, with a 6.9 per cent swing from Labour, Mr Callaghan last night described the Conservative call to the nation as “a mixture of fear and prejudice” .

Thursday's by-election gave Mr Vivian Bendall a majority of 5,497 votes over Mrs Tessa Jowell, the Labour candidate. The Liberals scraped into third place, 122 votes ahead of the National Front candidate. Both lost their deposits.

Mr Callaghan spoke last night to the Rhondda Valley Labour Party at Penrhys but gave no hint about the timing of the general election.

The result at Ilford was seen by many Labour MPs as an indication that, with substantial benefits to taxpayers in the April Budget and an effective counter-attack against the Conservatives on immigration and economic policy, the party could win an autumn election.

Realistic Conservative MPs acknowledged that the 6.9 per cent swing in the run-up to a general election was something of a warning to them, in spite of the immediate rejoicing about a Labour majority of 778 being turned into a Conservative one of more than 5,000.

Conservative Party managers, encouraged by some opinion polls, had expected a bigger slump in the Labour vote. Experience has shown that a swing of just under 7 per cent, coming six or perhaps nine months before a general election, is reversible. Electioneering can be expected to dominate activities at Westminster from now on.

Mr Callaghan said in Wales that people were beginning to see that the Labour Government's policy of building partnerships in the common interest was the way out of present difficulties.

Four years ago, he said, when the Conservative Government left office, serious commentators were asking whether Britain was any longer governable. The Conservatives' ineptitude and lack of understanding had reduced the country to that state.

Labour had proved that Britain was governable, but the Conservatives were at it again. “Their call to the nation is a mixture of fear and prejudice” , the Prime Minister said.

“They divide society so that those who draw social security are called scroungers, redundancy payments are for shirkers, trade unionists are dictators, and the blacks are swamping us.”

If the Government made tax reductions, then it was a bribe. If the Government did not make tax reductions, then the Tories said that the Government wanted to crush people.

“And every half-truth and prejudice is pandered to by the same wiseacres of the Tory press who, four years ago, were asking whether Britain was governable.”

The Prime Minister defended the Government's record in saving hundreds of thousands of jobs. Those workers would have been thrown on the scrap heap if there had been a Tory government carrying out its threat to get rid of all grants and subsidies.

“Ask the textile workers, the clothing workers, the footwear workers, or those in coal, the railways, shipbuilding or many working in private industry whether they agree with Sir Keith Joseph that all subsidies and grants are harmful. What a witches' brew for industrial and social chaos!”

That comment was echoed in other Labour speeches yesterday. The Labour leaders drew the conclusion from the Ilford result that the racial issue, raised so dramatically by Mrs Thatcher, was not, as it turned out, uppermost in the minds of most electors.

Mr Rees, Home Secretary, told a Leeds audience last night that the by-election had shown the smallest anti-Labour swing in a by-election for two years and the second smallest swing of the 18 by-elections in the present Parliament.

Labour was climbing back in the standing of the electorate, he claimed, “as the real improvement in the economy leads to a recovery of living standards” .

Ilford had disclosed that Mrs Thatcher's “vague and emotional appeal” to people's basest fears on immigration and law and order had had an influence, but the voters were concerned about many other issues, including the state of the economy, which was improving.

Mr Hattersley, Secretary of State for Prices and Consumer Protection, speaking in Dereham, Norfolk, made the same point. “The reason the more emotive issues were / wheeled out by the Tories in Ilford is clear: they do not want the people to think about the progress which is possible if Labour carries on, and the disruption and turmoil which is bound to flow from a Conservative victory at the general election” , he said.

Mr Steel, the Liberal leader, put a brave face on the Liberals' poor showing. “We knew we were on a hiding to nothing at Ilford” , he said. “It was the classic squeeze on the Liberal vote. Results like this before have not stopped us doing well at subsequent general elections.”

He said the by-election had no bearing on the ending of the pact with Labour. “Very good result” : Mrs Thatcher, the Conservative leader, said on arrival at Conservative Central Office yesterday that the Ilford victory was “a very good result for us” (the Press Association reports).

“They threw into the by-election everything they have, a Cabinet minister a day, the single-figure inflation press conference, but still we won and we did not just win won well.

“This must be thoroughly demoralizing for the Government and in this kind of atmosphere the Government can start to crumble. But Mr Callaghan still has the element of surprise in calling a general election. We must not let ourselves be taken by surprise.”

Earlier, asked on BBC radio news what part immigration had played, Mrs Thatcher replied: “Not a tremendously significant part. I think what it has shown is that we are prepared to speak out and tackle difficult issues.”

“With a very good result like this, of course the Prime Minister will not be anxious to go to the country because he would be a sure loser.” Mrs Thatcher thought Mr Callaghan would be tempted to cling on.