THE DEMAND to Mr. Stanley Evans from his constituency party
that he should surrender his seat for supporting Sir Anthony Eden over Suez shows that the Socialists are even more intolerant of deviations within their party than the Tories. Though none of the constituency associations of those few Tories who opposed their party over Suez have supported their Member, only one Tory, Mr. Nutting, has resigned his seat. As plainly the vast majority of the people of this country think it intolerable that an MP should ever oppose his party on a major issue, it seems to me that MPs are needless extravagances. Constituency elections should be abolished, And the whole electorate should vote as in America merely for one party leader or the other. Seats would be distributed to each party according to the percentage of the total vote that it had received. In this way it would be made sufficiently clear to each member that he was merely a member of either Eden's or Gaitskell's private army and that he was there to do as he was told. His sole duties would be to march through the lobbies at the correct time when ordered to do so by the Whips, though some of the cleverer ones might in debates be allowed to read out official handouts from Colonel Poole and Mr. Morgan Phillips. The others could be occupied doing drill in Palace Yard and learning to cheer their own side and boo their opponents. This system would, I think, remove the danger of insubordination in the party ranks and would be cheaper as well as more efficient than the present one. Members of this political force would not only have to be paid much less than a thousand a year with allowances. Their salary would be paid by the party machines instead of by the taxpayer. Democracy would then have arrived.
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