The Balloon Goes Up
By MICHAEL WINNER THE Conservative Association of Holborn and St. Pancras had gone to some trouble to prepare the hall for Housing Minister Henry Brooke. Union Jacks streamed from above; there were Tory posters, placards, and literature; a large benign photo of Mr. Macmillan behind the platform beamed down on the proceedings. Along one side of the room a huge banner pro- claimed 'OPPORTUNITY FOR ALL WITH THE TORIES.' Everybody seized it. After twenty minutes the hall was a shambles, the platform smashed, many people injured, and somebody was trying to shout through the made—not that anybody could hear —that the meeting was officially closed.
It was an unpleasant gathering—unusually violent for this country, perhaps symptomatic of greater unrest to come.
Surprisingly, nobody seemed to expect trouble. The stewards were delighted at the large attend- ance: 'I've never seen anything like it since television,' a lady organiser said, 'and to think we're up against Emergency Ward TenP A few quietly distributed pamphlets as people came in presented no anxiety to the organisers. 'We had a bit of trouble with the Empire Loyalists once, but we'll manage this lot,' a young steward said confidently. The unusually large turn-out of journalists and newsreel men suggested possible disturbance, but no one could have expected what followed.
It started before Mr. Brooke arrived when a group of sturdy, intellectual-looking men gathered in the aisle. 'Two, four, six, eight,' they chanted in unison. 'Who do we appreciate, M-0-S-L-E-Y, Mosley!' Then a group of men rushed in, and gaily-coloured gas-filled balloons bounced to the ceiling with anti-Tory slogans attached. The steward next to me was delighted. 'Don't you see what they've done?' he grinned. 'The trouble-makers have shown us who they are.' A second later he had an even clearer, if less encouraging, indication. As Henry Brooke stepped on to the platform a barrage of noise started which never stopped until the police fought through the remnants, and cleared the meeting.
About a hundred Conservatives in the front clapped and cheered. They were mostly women, some of whom had deliberately placed themselves near the exits 'in case things got too rough.' But from the rear of the hall four hundred or so Socialists and Fascists howled abuse. Their womenfolk stamped their feet, and the hall shook. 'Get back to the landlords,' shouted a man near to me. It was as intelligent a comment as any I heard.
Against this noise Mr. Brooke, seemingly calm, spoke his bit, while from the Chair Geoffrey Johnson-Smith (of the BBC's Tonight programme) spasmodically hit a small wooden block with a small wooden hammer. It was when Mr. Brooke finished that a mob surged forward. Chanting 'Away with Rent,' they advanced some fifty strong down the aisle. The stewards kept their distance. 'I bet they don't even pay rent,' a press photographer whispered to me. 'What if this lot of hooligans ever govern us?' a lady observed, a second before she was pushed down by the onslaught.
From then on it was a free-for-all. The table was wrenched aside; the Union Jack was trampled underfoot; the microphone was used as a weapon to bring blood to the head of one pugnacious steward. As chairs smashed on people and decorations alike, Mr. Brooke and his plat- form supporters. retreated to a small anteroom behind the rostrum. One man, aged. Councillor Norman Edwards, remained seated on the plat- form amidst the chaos.. Victorious, the advancing Party replaced the table, and hoisted Socialist Councillor John Lawrence on to it. And then a strange thing happened. The Conservative women, appalled into silence by the fray they had been witnessing, suddenly came back to life. They shouted, they booed, they emulated their oppo- nents and stamped their feet on the ground. Their slogans were no less vitriolic than had been heard earlier. And like.Mr. Brooke, Mr. Lawrence found his words unheard. Before he could appreciate— if indeed he would have been appreciated—the irony of the situation, he was taken down again.
Then came the immediate post-mortem. In his • tiny hiding-place behind the platform the journa- lists hustled and strained to hear Mr. Brooke. No, he had never seen a meeting like it. Yes, he recognised some of the rioters as Communist agitators. No, nothing so exciting had happened to him as a personal injury . . . and the inevit- able : he would go on regardless.
In the hall the police cleared the disturbing mob away. Nobody was arrested. A few Conser- vatives stayed to browse through Mosley's Union Movement newspaper generously distributed over the wreckage. It was, I noticed, much increased in size since I last saw it two years ago. Nobody bothered to clear up the hall; perhaps the task was too great. Only Mr:Macmillan remained smiling, unassailed, in the background.
Some twenty minutes later a police inspector rushed across the platform. 'All right, now,' he said dramatically. Mr. Brooke emerged from his hiding-place to be cheered by his few remaining supporters. Half a dozen policemen hustled him out the back door. Outside a mob were left bewildered. 'That was the quickest get-away I ever see'd,' said one burly man in a fawn mackintosh. 'Lucky for 'im, too,' muttered another. Some of the onlookers came up to the reporters. 'There's a tenants' meeting round the corner if you want to 'ear their point of view,' one said to me. 'Go there and you'll get your head bashed in,' a fellow- journalist commented precisely.
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