A SPECTATOR 'S NOTEBOOK T HE Home Secretary has described the
Poles at present in this country as tough. So, pretty clearly, if in a rather different sense, is the Prime Minister. The burdens he is carrying at present, and physically at any rate seems quite capable of carrying, are im- mense. Apart from presiding at Cabinets, answering questions in the House and keeping in the necessary touch with individual Ministers he has taken supreme charge of measures necessitated by the fuel and power crisis, presiding over the Crisis Committee which has been sitting almost daily ; he has made himself responsible for handling the Indian question in the House of Commons (the Secre- tary of State being in another place) and the illness of Mr. Herbert Morrison robs him of what is in effect his right-hand man. Now, with the Foreign Secretary in Moscow and the Minister of State in America, Mr. Attlee must obviously keep a close watch on foreign affairs to be ready to intervene or to give advice to the Under Secretary or the permanent officials. Not many men could stand this long. The strange thing is that the Prime Minister, who never looks particularly robust, remains to all appearance as fit as ever. The only consequence of his preoccupations seems to be that various minor decisions that are badly needed are being perpetually post- poned. The failure, for example, to make any announcement of Government policy on the Curtis Report after close on nine months
is nothing less than a scandal.
Previous page
