Spectator's Notebook
THE market research people who conducted a post-mortem on Orpington for the -Con- servative Party could find• no trace of the Euro- pean virus in the cadaver. That and other by- elections past, present, and shortly to come, hive been and will be conducted in the cosy parochial atmosphere of an age that is breathing its last. But this immunity will not go on for long and very soon we shall see the European issue com- ing closer and closer to the surface even in the few remaining regions where abroad is a bad word. Before many months have passed it will put all our domestic preoccupations in the shade. With the Brussels negotiations still in progress the Government has been unable for obvious reasons to permit itself more than the occa- sional ministerial remark on the side, although the Prime Minister went some way towards com- mitting himself at Stockton the other week. But there is no secret about the Government's deter- mination to get into Europe. How is opinion in the Labour Party going to crystallise? So far there has been no more, than shadow-boxing between Government and Opposition. But there are signs that the gloves will soon be off. At a first glance Mr. Gaitskell's string of questions on Saturday looked no more than rhetorical; but I am told that his opinion is hardening fast against Britain joining the Common Market. How he will reconcile this with his reported determination not to fight the election on the issue, goodness knows. Admittedly the leader- ship of the Labour Party is one long juggling with irreconcilables, but here for once is a crack that phrases won't paper. If it is indeed true that the Jays and the Pickles are winning the day, together with all the less respectable Little Eng- landers and diehard leftist conservatives in the party, then here is the rock on which Labour's antique ship may founder next time.
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