Glass-House Garry

Like a judge donning the black cap to pronounce the death penalty, the Speaker of the House of Commons placed his black cocked hat on his bewigged head. Then he read the sentence. For breach of confidence, an affront to the House, and contempt, the Honorable Member from Gravesend, Garry Allighan, was expelled from Commons.

It was the first expulsion of an M.P. in 25 years. Allighan had written a sensational article for the World's Press News, accusing unnamed M.P.s of selling confidential information to the press (TIME, Aug. 11). Aware that there are 46 working journalists in the House, the horrified Committee of Privileges had investigated. It found that Glass-House Garry himself had accepted -L-30 a week from the Evening Standard for supplying information.

Florid, flustered Laborite Allighan, an ex-Fleet Streeter, had made an abject apology. But to Deputy Prime Minister Herbert Morrison's proposal that Allighan be suspended for six months, Winston Churchill snapped: "How can you stigmatize a Member as dishonorable . . . and then after an interval . . . resume calling him an Honorable Member?" The House agreed. Shortly after his expulsion Allighan resigned from the Labor Party.

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