A SPECTATOR 'S NOTEBOOK
IAM not in favour of imputing motives, but motives are sometimes revealed unintentionally. I can't help thinking there was something of that in Mr. Aneurin Bevan's affirma- tion regarding the social services in his Ebbw Vale speech: " I would rather go out of public life than lend my assistance to breaking down a structure I helped to erect." What this seems to mean is that no matter how desperate the country's financial state, no matter how manifest it may be to everyone that drastic acion involving some cuts in the social services is imperative, Mr. Bevan would oppose it because it would involve " breaking • down a structure he helped to erect." Pride in handiwork is a virtue, but not if it entails blindness to all other considerations. However, Mr. Butler's threatened *-•`- slash " of the social services has not materialised, so Mr. Bevan gets no cams belli there. Apropos, by the way, of Mr. Bevan and all that, it is of some interest to note that while every other London paper seemed fully informed on the discussion at the Parliamentary Labour Party meeting on Tuesday, on Mr. Attlee's reso:ution and Mr. Strauss's amendment which was carried instead of it, the Daily Herald offered its readers not a word beyond the agreed coin/min/gm, issued after the meeting. The Labour paper for Labour news.
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