Anatomy of a resignation
LETTERS
From Anthony Judge, D. R. Myddelton, Alan Smith, C. Armstrong, G. L. Bayliss, Sir Thomas Scrivenor, Lionel H. Grouse, David Yockney, J. C. Maxwell, the Rev Fred Adams.
Sir: Congratulations to Mr Desmond Donnelly (26 January) on the best piece of truly comic writing I have read in years: 'But it was sad. After appearing on two television programmes I went to bed.' One rejoices in the picture of Mr Donnelly, crying his eyes out all the way from Kingsway to Lime Grove.
As a self-styled anatomist, however, Mr Don- nelly only demonstrated how fortunate an escape for surgery was his choice of a political career. He has long been noted as the producer of the least self-effacing election address in any general election campaign, but now he discovers within himself the ability to win a seat, single-handed and against the tide, by the sheer magic of his organising genius. Not a mention here for any loyal workers who might have given themselves unsparingly in the battle to send him to West- minster, including whoever acted as agent before the admirable Glyn Rees arrived.
If the Pembroke Constituency Labour party has known Mr Donnelly's general political think- ing all along, it ought to be added that some changes have taken place since 1950, when one's impression of the new Member for Pembroke was of someone closer to Mr Bevan than Mr Gait- skell, who appears now to have been the only leader to have understood him.
No other recent action of Mr Donnelly's has won such widespread approval within all sections of the Labour party. If he is really so convinced of his personal magnetism, why does he not put it to the test by resigning from the party altogether? This would spare his constituency party and the national executive the embarraw ment that the choice of candidate at the next election would be bound to cause. Also, it would provide confirmation or otherwise of the last two election results in h constituency, which seem to show that Mr DoMelly's fortunes always flow contrary to the Labour tide.
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