ROUBLE IN THE HEATH

1972 What has gone • rrong in Bexleyheath, Tory leader Edward Heath's constituency? Two years ago he romped home with an 8,000 majority.

In June 1970 the predominantly petty-bourgeois population was held by pundits to symbolize a new Tory Britain which would be built on the basis of self-help and thrift.

Stand on your own two feet and the millenium is at hand, was the crisp message unremittingly pumped out from Tory campaign headquarters at Bexleyheath.

Heath's messianic doctrine that Britain would be a land fit for human habitation but for Labour's open-handed support for "lame ducks' and 'layabouts', was a plausible enough theme to the burghers of Bexley who saw around them an unrelieved pattern of economic gloom.

Worry and anxiety haunts every corner of people's lives in Bexleyheath.

Worry that tightrope investments will snap, plunging families with limited capital into immediate ruin; worry' that if business doesn't improve sales commissions, and therefore living standards, will dwindle.

Worry that as fares out of London double and treble travelling may have to be abandoned. Worry that living standards set in the booming 1950s may have to be drastically. curtailed.

Up to 1945 Bexleyheath returned a Labour MP. But voting in the six successive General Elections has reflected the wild swings in the confidence of an insecure electorate.

Bexley village is a traditional country home for the Tory middle class and even today there are only a. of coun cil estates nearby."

But Bexleyheath grew out of the prosperity of mainly skilled workers who could afford to buy Last May Bexleyheath expressed its anger by returning Labour council right in Heath's own backyard.

In the past two years there have been a dozen major closures glant Thamesside Toys, Submarine on including the Cables, AEL and score factories have cut back on their work force. Vickers factory won a 12-month reprieve.

Erith employment exchange, controlling Thamesside jobs at Woolwich and Greenwich, is the centre for Bexleyheath's jobs opportunities.

Manager Mr L M Smith told said something For the last 12 months I've will turn up but everytime I pick up the phone it's bad news.

Unemployment is running national terms.

But as Mr Smith explained: 'If you're used to very little unemry up, it hits you very hard? loyment and suddenly the John Cartwright, prospective Labour candidate for Bexleyheath took up the same theme. 'In 1970 there were 500 people out of work, now it's 740—a 50 per cent rise. The rate of increase is very rapid and it's an unsettling factor, it worries people.

"There's a degree of white-collar unemployment and school leavers are finding things difficult as well.' But it was not only unemployment that put a Labour council' in power in Bexleyheath.

Said Mr Cartwright: 'A lot of the middle class expected they were going to do well out of tax concessions but they're losing as much, if not more, with increased national insurance, school meal prices up, milk taken away.

'The whole Selsdon package is coming fruition and people don't like it. The Tories are quite willing to let prices go up because this has a direct affect on profits. The whole government is angled at a comparatively small section of the population at thé expense of the rest of us.

'Many working-class families will be hit hard by the Tories' fair rents plan. Private rents are very high Bexley. Average rents would differ by as much as £3 between council housing and privately owned accommodation. "Most white-collar workers travel to London every day and the fare rises mean that some could have to consider moving back there-and they don't want that' nger about Heath's failure 1 nsult on the Common Marke which Oppose. and Wreat on intation and unemploy nent, has put Tory popularity il exleyheath at an all time lov Bexleyheath has tried Labour and Tory governments with the fickleness of the petty bourgéoisie. Both have failed and now many are looking for other alternatives.

Mr Cartwright expressed it like this:

"The feeling is one of complete cynicism, of disenchantment with democracy. Their feeling is that whatever they think politicians will do what they want regardless.

Is the Labour. Party willing, or even able, give Bexleyheath the national leadership it wants? Said Mr Cartwright; Tm desperately afraid of a government that doesn't know where it is going.

'On the Tories' record we but I Could demand general election Party has done nearly enough. eat or eye mering for work makes them in 1970.