DR. DONALD Mel. JOHNSON, MP, has written for the Spectator
on an odd variety of subjects, ranging from the deficiencies of mental health institutions to the sins of the State pubs in his constituency of Carlisle. His A Doctor in Parliament (Christopher Johnson, 18s.) provides an interesting but at times depressing account of his equally varied activities at Westminster : depressing because it confirms something we have been hearing increasingly often in recent years—that the life of an indepen- dently-minded Member of Parliament consists of long periods of tedium punctuated by frustration. Lord Hailsham said of his party a few months ago, 'We encourage differences of opinion to be honestly aired'; this book, Dr. Johnson sadly admits, 'will not invariably reveal signs of that encouragement of which Lord Hailsham speaks.' The author has done more than most in his few years in Parliament to fight for those causes of which he has first-hand knowledge, and in some of them progress is visible. But his story, as he unfolds it, presents a powerful indictment of the present party system—one which those politicians who complain about the bad odour into which the. House of Commons has recently fallen would do well to study.
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