B3 -election Emotions
The essential fact about the West Derbyshire by-election was that it was won by the anti-Government candidate, who is said to have offered his support to the anti-Government candidate at Bury St. Edmunds. Common Wealth, which can concentrate its resources at a by-election as it will not be able to at a General Elec- tion, and whose slogan " For Churchill, Against Churchill's Candi- date," seems to represent an attempt to make the best of both worlds, has irrupted into both contests, bent primarily, it would appear, on preventing the Government candidate from winning. Both the West Derbyshire and the Bury St. Edmunds elections have caught the imagination of the London papers, and thanks to the special cor- respondents they have sent down, the old atmosphere of contested elections is being successfully recaptured. It is being emphasised that it is only on domestic issues that the anti-Government candi- dates are at issue with the administration. It might have been supposed that such sweeping and progressive projects as its Education Bill and its White Paper on a National Health Service represent would secure it suppori in the home field as well as in its conduct of the war—though Mrs. Corbett Ashby, to do her justice, is as critical of ' its conduct of the war as of anything. The Prime Minister's speech on Tuesday creates a sobering realisation of the gravity of the situation immediately ahead. It is a strange moment for abolishing an election truce that had abundant reason when it was initiated and for straining efforts to get Government candidates defeated. These things are well enough understood in our own midst. They look differently from Moscow, or even Washington, and are, of course, a gift from Heaven to Dr. Goebbels.
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