Usually just in front of Mr. Edelman sits Mr. Woodrow
Wyatt. They are of the same generation, and they provide an interesting contrast. Mr. Wyatt clearly enjoys politics hugely. One suspects that when he tramps through the division lobby he puffs out his chest and says to himself. 'Wyatt, MP, you are making history, you are treading where Chatham trod, you are shaping the universe.' It is easy, especially for some of the young cynics in the Labour Party today, to laugh at Mr. Wyatt's attitude. But he has a quality which lifts him above them all. He has the courage of a terrier. He is one of the most outspoken opponents of Bevanism—and it is not easy to be this when you are a young Labour MP representing a Birming- ham constituency. But Mr. Wyatt has never felt that it was his duty to truckle to the opinions of his constituency party. Whenever he thinks his constituency party is about to go round the Bevanite bend he just takes the train to Birmingham and calls a meeting. He then tells them a thing or two which had perhaps not reached Birmingham before. There is courage among Left-wing Labour MPs who defy their party Whip, and they receive the praise they deserve for it. But the courage of Mr. Wyatt deserves to be acknowledged too. I have given some space to Mr. Edelman and Mr. Wyatt, because they seem to me, in the contrast between them, to typify one of the main anxieties about the Right wing of the Labour Party today. Many of the new post-war recruits to the Right wing—Mr. Edelman is a protégé of Mr. Hugh Dalton—seem to be charac- terised by a lack of conviction and even spinelessness which together can be the death of any party. Mr. Wyatt may some- times chase his tail round in circles in his excitement, but at least he instinctively feels that politics is about something important and is therefore worth getting excited about. You may approve of Mr. Wyatt's views or not, but at least a party composed of people like him can never be in danger of dying of anemia. One of the reasons for the success of the Bevanite campaign has been the rank-and-file feeling that the Right wing is bloodless. The fault does not lie with the likes of Mr. Wyatt.
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