Lib - Lab
Curiouser and curiouser becomes the strange affair of Mr./Lord Gwynne-Jones, the Minister of Disarmament. So he was, after all, one of the Liberal Party's defence advisers! And now CI joined the Labour Party on the day I was appointed and have paid a subscription') he joins the Labour Government. Not since Saul took the road to Damascus have we seen a swifter and more complete conversion. Pity he is in the House of Lords: the House of Commons would roast him alive. And how odd that the end-product of Mr.Wilson's gimmick should only His Grace isn't here any more—he's been replaced by a recorded commentary.' be that the man with the chief responsibility for disarmament should now be in the House of Lords instead of in the Commons as he was under the Tories.
Still, it's only one scene in what threatens to become a farce. By section two of the 1951 House of Commons Disqualification Act a num- ber of Mr. Wilson's Government are barred from sitting and voting in the House of Commons. Mr. Wilson asserts by virtue of the interpreta- tion clause (section thirteen) that as long as they are not paid a salary everything is in order. It is a nice point, but it is quite certain that even if Mr. Wilson can claim the letter of the law, what he has done is clearly against the spirit of it. For if Mr. Wilson's argument be accepted. then there is nothing at all to stop him appointing the whole of the Parliamentary Labour PartY as (unpaid) Ministers of State. And as MPs' salaries are going to be raised roughly to the level of what a Minister of State's used to be, the journey round the mulberry bush will be complete.
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