Labor Government

THE PROTESTS shutting off gasoline supplies in Europe are popular with consumers, oil companies and OPEC governments. All parties resent the high taxes that European governments slap on oil products. This strike action was undertaken by small business proprietors such as farmers, truckers and commercial fishermen -- not against high prices in the oil field, but high taxes at the pump. That is not equivalent to American anguish over current gasoline prices. The European protesters are demanding prices and fuel taxes more nearly resembling ours.

LONDON -- This week, Britain's new Labor government ignited an artistic brawl on an operatic scale.Labor unveiled plans to wedge into one building London's two proud, prestigious and financially ailing opera companies.The government also wants to squeeze a ballet company into the venue, the celebrated Royal Opera House at Covent Garden, which is closed until 1999 while undergoing a $300 million redevelopment.If British culture, media and sport secretary Chris Smith get their way, they'll even sandblast the words "Royal Opera House" off the refurbished venue's facade, renaming it the Covent Garden Theater.

OSLO, Norway (Reuters) -- The future of Norway's state alcohol monopoly, which charges sky-high prices that make drinkers grumble, has become a political headache for the Labor Party government as it eases the nation toward free trade in Europe.Voters of the tiny but influential Christian Democratic Party are appalled by the threat of cheap alcohol after the European Free Trade Association and the European Community join up in a vast free market Jan. 1, 1993.And the Christian Democrats have enough swing votes in parliament to keep EFTA-member Norway out of the so-called European Economic Area (EEA)

LONDON -- Britain's royal family is giving up a gigantic floating perk: the three-masted, 412-foot royal yacht HMY Britannia.Named and launched by Queen Elizabeth II in 1953 and used as a honeymoon retreat by Prince Charles and Princess Diana, Britannia will embark this month on a last British cruise before heading for a scrapyard -- or a second life as floating hotel, maritime museum or corporate center.British Defense Secretary George Robertson announced yesterday that the yacht would not be replaced after its tour ends in Portsmouth on Dec. 11."

Washington. -- It has recently been reported that the number of Jewish settlers in the West Bank has passed the 100,000 mark. Thousands of new residential units are under construction. Secretary of State James A. Baker considers there to be no greater obstacle to peace in the Middle East than the settlements. There is a serious concern in Israel that there will be a linkage between the halting of settlement activity and the $10 billion loan guarantees that Israel desperately needs to house the Soviet Jewish immigration.

LONDON -- Britain is moving into the final stage of one of the tightest electoral campaigns in its modern history, with the Labor Party holding a slight lead in the polls over the incumbent Conservatives.Three of four polls published in today's major newspapers gave Labor a two-point lead over the Conservatives. Only one, a poll in the Sunday Telegraph, showed the parties even.The apprehension now is that Thursday's election will produce a hung Parliament, with none of the parties having the necessary 326-seat majority in the House of Commons to govern on its own.Thus, Paddy Ashdown, leader of the smallest of the three major parties, the Liberal Democrats, has assumed an uncommon and unexpected importance.

Expect no quick results from the heartening but bewildering talks between Israel and its neighbors starting this week and next under the U.S.-Russian-brokered peace process. They are negotiating arms reduction in Washington, economic cooperation in Brussels, water management in Vienna, refugees in Ottawa and the environment in Tokyo.Never mind that Israel, Syria, Lebanon and the Palestinians boycott certain meetings. Despite that, the contacts are historic breakthroughs.They also highlight undoubted truths: That none of the Middle East countries can afford the arms race.

Harold Wilson thought his great contribution to British politics was to establish Labor as the normally ruling party. Working classes voting for Labor had more children than the upper classes voting Conservatives, and children tended to vote as their parents had, even when better educated and more successful. So the theory went.That was a quarter-century ago. When he died last Wednesday at 79, Mr. Wilson had been out of power for 19 years and Labor for 16 yearsHarold Wilson was a lad of modest origin and quick mind who flourished at Oxford, the civil service and Parliament and became a cabinet minister at 31. He won the leadership of the Labor Party in 1963 and the next year led it to victory to become the third Socialist prime minister in British history.

ONE-FOURTH of the people of Wales want their own assembly to govern education, culture, housing and economic development. One-fourth are opposed. One-half don't care enough to vote either way. On this basis, Wales will be given an assembly, or Senedd, by Britain's Labor government. Last Thursday's referendum -- 50.3 percent in favor, a huge swing from the massive rejection of 1979 -- was the go-ahead.The Senedd will be the first attempt at a Welsh parliament in six centuries, and the earlier one was pathetic.

THE ALMIGHTY dollar faces a rival in financial transactions. The euro exists, though you cannot see it. The currencies of Austria, Belgium Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portugal and Spain still circulate, but were glued together on New Year's Day.Each took a fixed rate of exchange to a unit of account called the euro. Control over their supply and interest rates passed from each nation's central bank to the European Central Bank in Frankfurt. They are really one currency; they just look different.