Westminster Corridors
Indeed, demoniac frenzy, moping melancholy and moon-struck madness. What is Puzzle to make of the spirit of the Commons these last days? If he had not a service to the diligent and honest reader he might well repair to some hostelry above the Fleet sewer and watch young scribes earnestly pursue the bawds. As it is the evidence of the spirit of the Commons is all confusion.
The Prophet Enoch believes the Prime Minister to be devoid of his senses and the Speaker was asked to do his duty in appointing two physicians to examine the Skipper's mental condition. Now Puzzle has sometimes listened to the Kentish Seadog speak of how healthy our economy grows, and has reflected that, were he Nero of old, his fiddle would have to be on fire before he thought of calling the fire brigade. But mad?
Rather those around him are mad. Young Will Rodgers, he who kept the list of undesirables when Hugh Gaitskell was under fire, told the Commons that he was "far from sure that the country welcomes or benefits from the degree of confrontation that we sometimes choose to ' contrive." Sage words indeed from one so immature. But in the same week he wrote in the public print, Socialist Commentary, that "there is now hardly a member of Parliament who does not believe that Labour would do significantly better under another leader" and that from a choice of four or five candidates (Mr Benn? Mr Foot, perhaps, Master Rodgers?) "the ranks would rally to the new man."
Previous page
