The Opposition Rises

Winston Churchill returned to London last week from a tour of Belgium. There he had been cheered and feted and wined for his triumphs of war leadership. His return to the political wars at home was not triumphal. The leader of His Majesty's Loyal Opposition was on a hot spot, heated by men of his own Conservative Party.

For weeks, younger Tory M.P.s had sat angrily silent while Clement Attlee's Labor Government poured in a barrage of bills and plans for the socialization of Britain. They had waited & waited for their own Party leaders, for Winston Churchill himself to go on the offensive. Off their back benches the young Tories had not been silent. Some were bitterly outspoken. In the Tory Daily Mail young, Tory-reformist Quintin Hogg wrote of the Conservative "Rip van Winkles." One day last week Conservative prestige hit a new low and simmering young Tory dissatisfaction reached the boiling point. In Commons Deputy Prime Minister Herbert Morrison triumphantly announced more steps toward the nationalization of British industries. He added Britain's gas and electric utilities, railroads and other inland transport, docks and harbors, iron and steel plants* to the specific list of Labor's socialist objectives.

Though it had all been blueprinted in general, Tory backbenchers squirmed, looked to the front benches for a word of protest, a challenge to debate. Winston Churchill's chair was vacant. So was Anthony Eden's. Oliver Lyttelton had to respond. He did, weakly, with a parliamentary point that was out of order. Laborites laughed and catcalled.

Next day Winston Churchill came back to a whirling storm of young Tory complaints. At a meeting of the backbenchers, Churchill slumped in a red leather armchair, listened sourly for 90 minutes to their pent-up criticisms. In schoolmasterly fashion Churchill reminded the younger men that they would better appreciate Parliament tactics when they had a few more years behind them.

* Exempted by Morrison: coastal and international shipping.

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