Jo's Boys
So Jo Grimond has officially announced that he may retire from the leadership of the Liberal party later this year—that is, assuming (as Lad- broke's do) that there is an election this year and that it returns an increased Labour majority. Poor Jo. If he'd played for a Tory victory in 1964 the hour of the realignment of the radical non-socialist left might really have struck by now. But he didn't. It's still his only chance, even in 1966. Let's hope it comes off.
I should be sorry to see him go. And for the Liberal party, of course, it would be a disaster. The Liberals under Jeremy Thorpe would just be a public joke--even if occasionally a good one. Jo Grimond is the only man who can make them appear a national party at all. Without him they might as well cut their losses, call themselves Liberal Nationalists, and team up with the Scottish, Welsh and Cornish Nationalists to consolidate the celtic fringes; leaving the genuinely liberal Liberals to find a home else- where. It would do no harm for the Tory party to start putting out the welcome mat now.
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