AT WESTMINSTER
THE third session of this Parliament ended on Thursday with the Tories almost certain that they are within sight of the Promised Land—an. ample Tory majority in the House of Commons—and Labour Members caked with the mud they have spattered upon themselves. On Tuesday night. while the ' House,' or rather the sixteen Members who were sitting in it, were'discussing the railway reorganisation scheme. the Parliamentary Labour Party was deciding by 131 to 93 to withdraw the party whip from seven men who had broken a party rule. It is strange how the Commons as a whole follow these upheavals in the Labour Party round by round. (Even Sir Winston Churchill, who was ,getting a birthday present from his constituents at Woodford while the struggle in the Labotir Party was going on, spared a thought for the disciplinarians. They, poor souls, had got themselves into 0 fix by trying to limit the attacks on the Government's European policy and on the Labour Party leadership simultaneously.) At Westminster, the atmosphere suggested the tension that grips a school when a prefect has been caught smoking and is having a critical interview with the headmaster. Those Members who were in the chamber of the House pretended gallantly that they were thinking about railways, but they all had an ear cocked for the swish of a cane.
* * * • Ifs life, and with the time-table for the pensions increases well known, has strengthened its position in the country. Mrs. Bessie Braddock, the Labour Member for the Exchange division of Liverpool, tried to puff young Mr. Woollam out of the House when he marched past her to take the oath. It was a brave, if ungracious, gesture, but unluckily for her, Mr. Woollam proceeded to take the oath, and the glum Labour spectators scarcely had the heart to run through the snags that may yet embarrass the Government before the next general
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