24 OCTOBER 1952, Page 5

A SPECTATOR'S NOTEBOOK

COMMENThas been made on the strength of theBevanites in workers with the hand—the hand that taps, the type- writer or drives the pen. Quite apart from Mr. Bevan's wife and her colleagues on the accredited Bevanite organ, Mr. R. H. S. Crossman, M.P., one of the two newly-elected members of the .Labour Party Executive, is Assistant Editor of the New Statesman and author of a weekly column in the Sunday Pictorial. Mr. John Freeman, M.P., who resigned office in the last Labour Government at the same time as Mr. Bevan and Mr. Harold Wilson, is a member of the staff of the New Statesman. Mr. Tom Driberg, M.P., is author of a weekly column in Reynolds News. These are all papers supporting the Labour Party. Through them Bevanite writers have an invaluable opportunity of making converts in the camp that matters. The Conservative and Liberal camps, and the Con- servative and Liberal Press, for this purpose matter not at all. Mr. Attlee and his friends can hardly feel that defence by the Daily Herald effectively neutralises concentrated attack from these various quarters. The Daily Worker, moreover, for what it may be worth, dislikes Bevan less than it dislikes Attlee. * * *. *