A Double Skid In his now notorious reference to Buckingham
Palace Sir Stafford Cripps' first thoughts were bad, and his second thoughts worse. A speaker who says that the Socialist Party may have to face opposition from Buckingham Palace must expect the ordinary construc- tion to be put on his words, and when he explains that he was not referring to the King, but only to " Court circles," he improves matters only unintentionally by turning indignation into derision. Opposition from Hatfield, it must be supposed, would mean opposition not from Lord Salisbury, but from people who go to lunch with him. Sir Stafford apparently agrees in retrospect that the King should be kept out of party politics. His own reputation would stand higher if he had thought of that a little earlier. As it is he has made what was no doubt simply a platform slip a good deal worse by the explana- tion with which he tried to recover himself.
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