Apology
`DEATH IN VENICE'
FOLLOWING publication on March 1 last of an article under this title concerning the Twenty-third National Congress of the Italian Socialist Party, we received- a complaint from solicitors writing on behalf of the Right Honour- able Aneurin Bevan, MP, Mr. Morgan Phillips and Mr. Richard Crossman, MP, concerning one passage in that article which had, regrettably, been read to reflect upon them.
On receipt of their solicitors' letter, our own solicitors immediately wrote submitting a form of apology which it was our desire to publish in our next issue. Unfortunately, neither the draft which we first submitted nor an alternative draft sent later was acceptable to them and although we invited amendment or alternative wording none was forthcoming. In consequence, though we desired to publish an agreed apology, this did not prove possible.
Unhappily, proceedings are at present pending against the Spectator in respect of the article. We have felt, however, that it would not be fair to Mr. Bevan, Mr. Phillips and Mr. Crossman, to our readers or to ourselves to leave the passage in question uncorrected and unwithdrawn until matters are resolved, since this could involve some considerable lapse of time. We have, there- fore, taken it upon ourselves now to publish this statement and apology.
The passage to which we have referred, and which we much regret was published in our columns, has unfortunately been taken to mean that these leading members of the Socialist Party consumed such an amount of alcoholic refresh- ment at the National Congress of the Italian Socialist Party as to make the Italians seriously suspect their sobriety.
It is hardly necessary for us to say that the article was published by us in good faith, having been received from a reputable source, and we wish to .take this opportunity of making it clear that any such imputation was never intended and, of course, would be quite untrue. In so far as the article was read in this way or in any adverse sense the passages are unreservedly withdrawn.
We wish also to take this opportunity of tendering to Mr. Aneurin Bevan, Mr. Morgan Phillips and Mr. Crossman our sincere apologies and of expressing our regret for any inconveni- ence or annoyance they may have suffered. refrain from reminding those who speak of a Liberal revival that there are five Liberal MPs in the House of Commons and it is quite on the cards that after the Election there will be only one. Two of their seats—in Huddersfield and the Fearful Hole—are held by means of a simple carve-up; the Tories have refrained from putting up a can- didate in Huddersfield West and Bolton West in return for a Liberal promise to keep out of Huddersfield East and Bolton East. This, in theory, should give them two seats each; but as it happens, Mr. Mallalieu won Huddersfield East for the Labour Party last time, and practically any Labour candidate 'could beat Mr. Bell in Bolton East next time, so local Tories may not be so happy with their side of the bargain. If all four seats should have three-cornered contests there would be no Liberal MP in any of them. In Cardiganshire and Montgomeryshire the carve- up is less blatant; still there was no Tory can- didate in either division last time, and Conserva- tive fuglemen in both would mean two more Liberal. casualties. Only Mr. Grimond had two opponents last time, and managed to poll more than both of them put together but he would be hard put to it, if his colleagues were wiped out, to play the cook, and the captain bold, and the mate of the Nancy brig, and a bo'sun tight, and a midshipmite, and the crew of the captain's gig. Yet, if he doesn't mind his P's and Q's, that is just the position in which he may find himself.
And herein lies his dilemma. For the sizeable Liberal vote in Edinburgh and Gloucester stemmed, it is true, partly from despair and partly from the fact that their candidates were a cut above the average; yet with the right approach those negative votes could be turned into positive ones. The right approach is easily indicated; suppose we were to pick up our newspapers one day and read the following : Speaking in Mumbleshire last night Mr. Grimond, leader of the Liberal Party, said that he had had the opportunity for some years past of observing both Mr. Macmillan and Mr. Gaitskell at close quarters, and it was his opinion that each of them has a brain the size of a split pea, while the amount of political integrity possessed by the pair of them put together could be amply covered by a sixpence with a hole in it.
Now it is true that Mr. Grimond does not have my crisp and elegant prose style (though I am willing, if suitable terms can be arranged, to write his speeches for him), but the phraseology is unimportant. The point is, the electorate is hungering to be convinced that the thing joining Mr. Grimond's neck to his coccyx is a backbone and not a banana. And until they hear something like the above from him they will remain un- convinced, and so will I. Yet, if he begins to lay about him with a will, bang go his four straight fights and with them four of his five seats. Of course, in a sense the problem is solved for him; he is temperamentally unsuited to a real political rough-and-tumble, so that even if he wanted to start one he couldn't. But history will not wait much longer. I sat a fortnight ago and heard Mr. Walter Reuther bring a cataleptic TUC cheering to its feet; suppose a Reuther should appear in Britain, and canalise all the frustrations, all the weariness and disgust that millions feel for the Labour and Conservative parties? The British electorate may not set much store by a Leader;
TAPER
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