Spectator's Notebook
Tun curious affair of the missing Tory voter in the steel division was solved by the discovery that he was there after all. The Govern- ment Whip couldn't count. This of course, as Mr. Heath pointed out, intro- duces a new and alarming hazard. There will no doubt be occasions on which Mr. Speaker will be called on to give a casting vote. What happens if he gives it on the basis of inaccurate information? The Times would have no doubt of the answer. If Mr. Wilson (see their leader on Tuesday) can happily ignore a defeat caused by the absence, bed-bound or fog-bound, of some of his sup- porters, he can certainly ignore one caused by human error. Or at least he can demand a recount. I hold a simpler view. One of the duties of a government is to command the House of Com- mons. If it is too tired or aged or infirm to do this, it has no business to be there. Nor is it an excuse to say that there was fog in November. There often is.
Largely on the strength of this counting error columns of print have been devoted to the assump- tion that the Tories didn't want to win on Monday in the Division lobby. Well I did! Naturally one can only win on a normal vote if three members of the Parliamentary Labour Party oppose their Government. On the issue of steel nationalisation, which at least a third of the Government regard as absurd, is it too much to hope that in all the Labour-held constituencies from the Butt of Lewis to Pembrokeshire there will be found Three Just Men? Or if that is.too much to ask for, just three men.
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