As for the election broadcasts, it is hard to estimate
their effect, and not too easy to pass judgement on them individually, for the _ simple reason that very few people, I imagine (of whom I am not one), listened to the whole lot. Twenty-four full-length addresses plus two or three short ones is too much for most stomachs. On the Conservativt side Sir John Anderson and Mr. Eden, I thought, were the best, for they assumed their audience to consist of reason- able beings capable of being convinced. Mr. Attlee and Sir Stafford Cripps both did well fog Labour, and Sir Archibald Sinclair was the best of the Liberals, Sir William Beveridge making the mistake of talking too much Beveridge. The outstanding disappointment, undeniably, was the. Prime Minister. It is no discredit to be proved to be a better national leader than party leader, but if the tone of the opening broadcast had been different, the whole contest might have been kept on a higher level. Whoever, moreover, arranged that Mr. Churchill should be responsible for four out of the ten Con- servative broadcasts was ill-advised. One could with great advantage have been allotted to Mr. Richard Law, whose article in last Sunday's Observer was an admirable example of the sober treatment of a
party case.
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