Spectator's Notebook
HAD I been asked this week (I wasn't) I would have been for an elec- tion in June. Not every- one agrees, all too evi- dently. But: 'What is so rare as a day in June? Then, if ever, come perfect days.' If ever . . . But there is no need to invoke poets. There , seems a growing sense that what has gone on so long, has gone on long enough. This is something overlooked at peril. Besides, there can be no advantage for the country in the prolonga- tion for months to come of the high-pitched electioneering of recent days. I would even deplore it on simple humanitarian grounds. Six more months of Mr. Wilson piously begging for the people's democratic rights? Of Sir Alec teasing us to exhaustion with jokes about when the date might be? Heaven preserve us. The old argument that October is better than June from a government's, point of view seems to me to fail. In the autumn people are supposed to be more contented after their holidays; and Parliament has not been sitting, so the daily dose of Opposition criticism has been muted. But in the fifth year of a Parliament's life, delaying until the very last moment looks evasive and, not to mince words, timid. Such delay places a weighty bludgeon in Labour hands—not entirely empty without it. The Tories are already growing sick of hearing that they are afraid to face the electorate. If I were Tory leader (a mishap pre- cluded by a beneficent Providence) I would have said all this to Sir Alec this week.
Previous page
