Unsuitable

"What does this picture mean?" asked the electioneering pamphlet coyly. And under a photograph of a curly-topped baby glowing with health. Britain's Labor Party gave the answer: "The prams of Britain are filled with the bonniest babies in living memory. Britain today gives mothers and babies a better chance of good health than any other country."

That, thought a Tory housewife in Southwark, was as may be. This particular picture was a long way from proving it. She took another look, then bustled over to the cupboard. There, sure enough, was the selfsame picture, neatly pasted in an old scrapbook. She had clipped it from the Daily Express, dated June 10, 1936, when Stanley Baldwin and his Tories were in charge. Its caption read, "Exclusive picture of Prince Edward,* baby son of the Duke and Duchess of Kent."

Next morning a letter from Southwark sent clerks from Conservative headquarters scurrying to check. In no time their faces were wreathed in happy smiles. Soon afterward faces at Transport House, where Labor holds forth, turned a dull brick red. "I deeply regret the mistake," stammered Party Secretary Morgan Phillips as he withdrew the boomeranging pamphlet amid general guffaws. "The photograph was selected from a collection of 13 supplied by a picture library in response to a request for suitable postwar babies."

In Scotland, quick-thinking Laborite Herbert Morrison did his dauntless best to recapture party dignity with a cool last word: "Through the good work of the Labor Government all God's children look much the same."

* Now Duke of Kent himself, a scholar at Eton.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.