POLITICAL STAGNATION?
SIR,—Angus Maude is in the wrong field and even suggests that Labour might lose the next election through Gaitskell's 'tactical ineptitude.' But tactics are unimportant just now. As for policy, the 1955 statement Forward with Labour still stands, but by- elections can only be fought on the Government's record. Did the Conservatives promise rent control in 1955?
Donnelly is surely on the right lines in asking for a more radical Labour Party. If by this he means `more progressive' then I am with him. Quite simply, Labour should now seek to represent the saner and more forward-looking elements in politics and to do this it must get away from irrational cliché responses; it must get away from its own brand of conservatism.
Over Suez Gaitskell 'showed unmistakable sighs of the kind of leadership which the country now needs. He stoke not as a party man—hence the Tory rancour against him, as well as some Labour suspicions. A new responsibility has been thrust upon the Labour Party and it is to be hoped that it will rise to the occasion. Suez is almost as great a tragedy for Labour as it ought to be for the Tories. We are now concerned not only with the ship's course but with the fact that it has been badly holed. All that the Tories can do is to man the pumps.— Yours faithfully,
SILVAN JONES
University College of North Wales, Bangor
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