Many people hold (with The Times) that the Government's sub-
ordination of national to doctrinal interests has induced a state of political malaise which can only be cured by an early General Election. If one were to be held now (Mr. Bevan, I hear, is keen on the idea) I believe that one important factor in it would be the fairly wide-spread delusion that if Mr. Churchill were returned to power be would lead the country into a war. This belief—a mushroom- like growth which seems to belong to a kind of political folklore— is quite impossible to trace back to anything that Mr. Churchill or anybody else has said or done since the last elections. I suppose the rather simple people who hold it reason that Mr. Churchill will always march to the sound of the guns ; and when these stop firing in Korea perhaps this fallacy will fade away.
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