A good many people will soon be getting rather tired
of declara- tions by Labour Ministers that their predecessors have left things in such a shocking state that they. with all their virtues, cannot be expected to reduce chaos to order at once. The other day it was Mr. Greenwood protesting that Mr. Willink had left the Health Service negotiations in such a hopeless muddle that Mr. Bevan would have to begin over again from the beginning. Now it is Mr. Shinwell asserting that he has been left " a terrible legacy of impro- visation and muddle." The comment, qui s'excuse s'accuse, is obvious. In any case, the thing is nonsense. The Labour Ministers, man for man, are on the average not superior but inferior to the Ministers they have displaced. Some of them, no doubt, will do well ; some may scrape through ; all of them will be judged on their performance, and some have reason to fear the verdict.
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