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PASTOR GENERAL'S REPORT, November 14, 1980
Page 25
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--Dexter H. Faulkner, Worldwide News
ON THE WORLD SCENE
SHIFTS RIGHT AND LEFT: While President-elect Ronald Reagan has been busy
preparing for his transition to power after his November 4th landslide
victory, another election of sorts has taken place in Britain. On November
10, Michael Foot, a flamboyant leftist firebrand, was chosen to lead Bri
tain's opposition Labor Party. Laborites lost the national elections last
year to the Conservatives, led by the current Prime Minister Margaret
Thatcher.
Foot takes over as Labor leader from former Prime Minister James Callaghan,
who represents the moderate right spectrum of the otherwise very socialis
tic, out-of-touch-with-reality party. His victory signifies a pronounced
lurch to the left within Labor, a trend underway since Thatcher's victory,
and intensified during the Labor Party convention a few weeks ago.
Prime Minister Thatcher has been tightening Britain's economic belt with
a long-overdue dose of monetarist medicine. As a result, the pound
sterling is strong and once again well-respected around the world. But
Mrs. Thatcher's success in this area has been achieved at the expense of
steadily rising short-term unemployment. Hence her policies are becoming
increasingly unpopular. Nevertheless, as long as she retains her comfort
able parliamentary majority, she will not have to stand for election until
1984.
Her opponent, Mr. Foot, could not possibly express more opposite views.
He is fiercely dedicated to statism, government spending to reduce un
employment and nationalization of industry. He also champions the Labor
radical left's new issues--Britain's pull-out from the Common Market,
unilateral nuclear disarmament and a ban on stationing U.S. nuclear weap
ons on British soil.
A parallel right-left phenomenon may now be occurring in the United
States. Conservatives, rather than so-called "Ford moderates," are now
firmly in control of the Republican Party. The reaction on the part of
the badly beaten Democratic Party is likely to be a more pronounced move
to the left.
But who will lead the Democrats? President Carter--a one-time phenomenon
who arose out of nowhere to capture the Democratic machinery in 1976--is
thoroughly discredited. So are the so-called ''nee-conservative" Democrats
who supported Reagan this year. That leaves room for only a true-blue
liberal.
"Leadership of the Democratic Party," writes William Schneider in the Los
Angeles Times, November 9, 1980, "probably will pass to Sen. Edward M.-
Kennedy. Kennedy is the one Democratic figure with powerful personal
loyalties, political· stature, and demonstrated electoral appeal. The fact