Paying For Lunch

IN THE WAKE of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher's stunning victory two weeks ago, many of her supporters have predicted all sorts of peachy things to come for their proud country, promising everything short of a return to world domination and a repeat of the Falklands victory in the Ukraine.

A fortnight after Thatcher's landslide election win, the mood of many Britishers can be described as analogous to the feeling one gets when successfuly completing a grueling five hour exam the pain is worth the glory. Even those who are not Conservative sympathizers have taken Thatcher's "no free lunch" economics to heart and are he ginning to sharpen their knives for the dinner feast they hope will follow.

The fact that England gross national product has dropped off by several percentage points and unemployment levels are at unprecedented heights seems not to matter. According to the script, Thatcher is expected to whip into shape the trade unions and other enemies of prosperity the same way she crushed the Argies last year.

The English public has given the Prime Minister a mandate for national machismo, be it installing U.S. cruise missiles, union bashing, the muffing of the moderate element of the Tory Party (known as "Wets"), hard bargaining with the rest of the Common Market and the denationalizing of inefficient, strike ridden government owned industries.

Perhaps the real reason, Thatcher has been able to turn economic disaster into political triumph is the fact that her actions have not matched her militant rhetoric. The unemployed still receive unlimited benefits, a national health program continues on its merry inefficient way, and Thatcher has set to accelerate her attacks on trade unions by making public companies. Not only did many unemployed vote Tory, but union members in record numbers deserted the opposition Labor Party, which ostensibly exists to represent their interests.

If you add the massive and unwieldy tax system you have the picture of a welfare state of a most ingrained nature. Like Reagan supporters in the U.S., Thatcherites like their talk tough, but their heroine has yet to really tackle the issues she has been using for political capital these four years.

Now, of course, is the time for her to act. Her opponents have been vanquished and the new Parliament will be a rubber stamp for her proposals, but whether Thatcher has the guts to legislate her promised program is yet undetermined.

The Tory government should move quickly to spur further denationalization as it has with the mammoth British Telecom--reorganize the stifling tax system to encourage competition and entreprencurism, and firm up relations with the Common Market and Europe, not to mention South America. Only if Thatcher adds bite to her bark will the electorate be able to judge her on her performance instead of her personality.

Certainly, Thatcherism is a bitter pill to swallow for liberals in the U.K., but at this point there is nothing else on the table. The currently obsolete Labor Party, which has flirted with socialism and communism, finally received the as from an English public fed up with outlandish proposals about quitting the Common Market, nationalizing many prime industries and scrapping the country's military defenses.

It does not look like Labor will moderate itself in the future. Party leaders Michael Foot and Denis Healey have stepped aside, making room for a new generation of leaders. But the party's archaic and ingrained internal structure rules out any real moderation. Two-fifths of the votes come from the unions which have repeatedly shown themselves to be unrealistic and irrational--some say they seek the destruction of the current political system. The fiery Neil Kinnock, whose name is being tossed about as a possible successor to Foot, has shown himself to be likeable and coherent but somewhat radical and bereft of a program.

The moderate opposition coalition, which is comprised of the Social Democrats and the Liberals, has done little more than stay on the middle of the road (a la the U.S. Democratic Party) and bridge the ever increasing gap between Toryism and rabid Labor ideology. The net effect in this election was even worse than siphoning of votes from Jimmy Carter in 1980 by Independent John Anderson to the benefit of the Conservative candidates Reagan and Thatcher.

Nonetheless, the SDP is still a young party and the middle ground is always a good place to occupy if everybody else is fleeing it like the plague. By the next election in 1987, the SDP will either have to woo enough moderate Laborites to become the opposition party or die out.

As the liberals and socialists fight for the losers share. Thatcher can now test her policies at will. Although the U.S. is not Britain, it would be instructive to watch Thatcher at work, for it is Reagan's turn to face the electorate next year. A victory for Thatcher should not cause nightmares for Reagan opponents, but a true test of Reagan-style policies may tell us whether the U.S. should follow the mother country's course.