Mr. Speaker
With genuine respect and affection from the whole of the House of Commons Dr. Horace King became on Tuesday the first Speaker who had been a member of the Labour party. Perhaps some of the plaudits rang a little wryly in his ears, for he and everyone else knows that the Prime. Minister was prepared to scuttle Dr. King if only a Tory or a Liberal would take his place. Happily the House as a whole simply refused to have anyone else.
H. Wilson, however, saved his bacon by secur- ing Mr. Bowen's acceptance of the third-man role. I believe in giving devils and Prime Ministers their due and some may well think it a triumph to have persuaded a man whose 'absences from the House have been the subject of adverse comment'—the Daily Telegraph's words, not mine—to serve. Others, especially the Liberals, are not so pleased. For the net result is that the Tories gain a vote and the Liberals Iose one. As I said in Hawick last Saturday, it will be now as if the ,Roxburgh by-election had never taken place.
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