Political Commentary
BY HENRY FAIRLIE pARLIAMENT reassembles next week, and Mr. Alfred Robens (whom I have heard described as the Khrushchev of the Labour Party) has joined Mr. Trevor Evans (who is still sometimes described as the Labour Correspondent of the Daily Express) in forecasting that, at the first meeting of the Parliamentary Labour Party, Mr. Attlee will announce his retirement from the leadership. The first point to make is that neither Mr. Robens nor Mr. Evans knows any more than you or I. Mr. Attlee is not naturally a talkative man, and on the question of his retirement in particular he is as unconfiding as a clam. The second point to make is that there is not the slightest shred of evidence that he intends to retire immediately. He was in magnificent form on Friday morning at Margate: the voice which on Tuesday had seemed a little tired was once again sharp and crisp, as he disposed of Mr. Victor Yates, the pacifist MP, with the barbed comment, 'I have always thought that conscience was a still small voice and not a loudspeaker.' Moreover, Mr. Attlee, who misses nothing, cannot have avoided drawing a moral from the applause which greeted Mr. Jim Baty's request that he should lead the Labour Party at the next election. Again, some attention should be paid to Mr. Attlee's own observation that 'we' of the Parliamentary Party 'are going back to Westminster to continue the fight. . ..'
If Mr. Attlee does not intend to retire immediately, can any pressure be put on him to change his mind? This question was discussed constantly at Margate. The idea seems to me more than a trifle ridiculous. Even supposing a suitable emissary could be found to ask Mr. Attlee to go, just imagine the reception he would get. Mr. Attlee has a way of not asking certain visitors to sit down, and the unhappy Mr. X would stand, shuffling from foot to foot, while all the time Mr. Attlee remained bent over his doodles. The shrewd old head would never look up, and in the end Mr. X would proffer a few perfunctory congratulations on Mr. Attlee's recovery of health and disappear through the door; and as it closed behind him Mr. Attlee would return silently to his detective novel. The suggestion was being canvassed at Margate that Mr. Anthony Wedgwood Benn should be sent as the emissary and offer Mr. Attlee his seat in the House of Lords. The idea of putting pressure on Mr. Attlee to retire need be taken no more seriously than that. As I said above, no one knows what Mr. Attlee intends to do. It may be that he has decided to enjoy the country air of Buckinghamshire without the distractions of politics. Certainly he is likely to retire by this time next year. But all the present signs are that for the moment he will remain. Politics is not a distraction to Mr. Attlee. It is an obsession. It is his life.
But, when he does eventually go, who will succeed him? This, of course, was the most important topic of discussion at Margate. Again, no one knows. If Mr. Attlee did resign next week it is just possible that Mr. Herbert Morrison would be elected leader—though even this does not seem to me prob- able. In spite of the peculiar rallying of support for Mr. Morrison which was observable on the Sunday, Monday and Tuesday at Margate, in spite of the fact that some Left-wing MPs would support him on the grounds that he could not be leader for long and therefore the Left would be able to fight the battle of the leadership all over again a few years front now, in spite of the fact that some of the big union leaders are supposed to have turned against Mr. Gaitskell because of his `flirtations' with the Left (I think this is wholly untrue), the fact still remains that Mr. Morrison's age counts against him. The leader of the Labour Party is elected only by the MPs and one vital factor seems to me to have been overlooked in the past few days. There is a considerable section of Labour MPs who may be defined as from Right to Centre and another section who may be defined as from Left to Centre : at Margate it was quite clear that these two vitally important groups within the Parliamentary Labour Party wish to get the ques- tion of the leadership out of the way, and have decided that the best way of doing it is to support Mr. Gaitskell. They will decide, and even in a three-cornered fight I would back Mr. Gaitskell to win.
The closing rounds of the dispute about the 'Establishment' and the Burgess-Maclean affair—readers may follow them blow by blow in the correspondence columns—seem to me to add very little to the earlier ones. Both sides are now en• trenched in positions which they show no sign of leaving and there, as with most discussions about fundamental issues, the dispute must be left for the moment. Of the 'Establishment' I wish to say only one thing before, at some future date, I try to analyse it in detail. The 'Establishment' is something more than and other than 'the right people' or 'the governing class'; and it certainly is not a closed corporation. It is precisely, because it now sucks in so many people that I think it needs to be examined afresh in a more dispassionate spirit than has been possible in these pages. Of the Burgess-Maclean episode• I can only repeat that there has never been any intention to pillory any person who, for the most worthy motives, defended Mrs. Maclean from what they thought was persecution. The Editor authorises me to say also that this, as affirmed in a leading article last week, is strongly the view of the Spectator' But both Lady Violet Bonham Carter and Mr. David Astor still seem to assume that the evidence from Mrs. Maclean's side is automatically more trustworthy than that from the Daily Express or the Daily Telegraph. There is surely no point In pursuing the matter further. Both of them use the argument which is the last resort of those who are uncertain of their positions. McCarthyite, they both say. McCarthyism means accusing non-Communists of Communism. But no one has been accused of being a Communist except Mr. and Mrs. Maclean and Mr. Burgess. Come, where is the McCarthyism?,
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