A SPECTATOR'S NOTEBOOK
WEST HAM has gone as everyone expected it would, and the defeated Conservative candidate is too modest when he declares that it was purely his personal shortcomings that were responsible for the loss of a seat to the National Government. The seat would have gone no matter who the Government candidate was, for the swing is definitely back to the 1929 position. Basingstoke and North Hammersmith both illustrated that, and now West Ham illustrates it again. Whether the swing will go further before the dissolution comes is a question on which the Government's election experts will have to speculate with some anxiety. Their guess will do a good deal to decide the Prime Minister (if the real decision rests with him) when to go to the country. Meanwhile it is lamentable to note the regularity with which some pedestrian trade unionist is regularly put up at every by- election. Of former front-benchers Mr. Arthur Greenwood and Mr. Henderson have got back at by-elections, but other ex-Ministers like Mr. Alexander and Mr. Lees- Smith, Dr. Addison and Mr. Dalton, have never had so much as a chance. Merthyr Tydvil has just turned down Mr. Lees-Smith in favour of a member of the local town council. The trade unions, of course, have the money, and in other cases the local view (intelligibly enough) overshadows the national, but as a result the strength of the Labour Opposition in the House is nothing like what it might be. Both the party and the country are the worse for that.
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