WOULD HAVE THOUGHT that the reaction to Rochdale of any
reasonable Conservative would be : 'Right : we have taken a bad beating : no excuses : now let us find out what hit us and why.' But what happens? Lord Hailsham goes to Glas- gow and delivers to the assembled Unionists a speech so full of windy claptrap that I can Understand why—as Christopher Hollis writes on another page—nobody any longer believes a'word that Ministers say. If Lord Hailsham had a glimmering of political (as distinct from party) sense he would realise that to damn the Liberals for having no policy must, in the circumstances, infuriate former Conservative supporters; for that is exactly the complaint they have about the Government. And it was also silly of him to pro- test that the Liberals split the anti-Socialist vote. Any split there was was caused by the Conserva- tives; if the Government had been sincere in its anti-Socialist protestations, it would have with- drawn Mr. Parkinson from the field.
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