A Spectator's Notebook'
THE COMPARISON made by some good judges between Mr. Gaitskell's tactics during the Labour Party split over hydrogen-bomb tests last week and those employed by Lord Attlee on similar occasions seems to me ., unfounded. Lord Attlee used to listen to the voice of the party and then express it. Moreover, when he had expressed his view he frequently stuck to his guns and carried the day— German rearmament is a case in point. Mr: Gait- skell seems to have done precisely the opposite. He stated a view, did not stick to his guns, and then expressed a compromise view. His retreat was made to look all the more ignominious be- cause the compromise was more or less meaning- less. To postpone the tests while disarmament proposals are put to other governments merely lessens their usefulness to national defence while not in the least altering their eventual effect on the human race.
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