Lesson for Politicians

In Britain, politicians often treat newsmen in a standoffish manner that U.S. reporters have never tolerated at home. But last week British newsmen rebelled and, in high good humor, gave their politicians an American-style lesson in press relations. The issue: the news leaks on the meetings of the Labor Party and its National Executive Committee. Last month, when the party met in a closed session and barely (by a vote of 113 to 104) passed a resolution supporting the inclusion of Germany in Western defenses (TIME, March 8), the respected weekly London Observer (circ. 475,609) reported the meeting fully. The Observer's veteran parliamentary reporter and novelist (Fear No Evil), Hugh Massingham, even included such details as Nye Bevan's letting "off a few spirited quips about the stupidity and dishonesty of some of his colleagues," and Clement Attlee's announcing "through pipe puffs that 'I'm told this [vote] will split the party, [but I] can't help that!'':

Massingham's story and others that followed were too much for Deputy Labor Party Leader Herbert Morrison. Bitterly, he scolded the Observer and party members who "retail gossip about confidential proceedings." The Observer quickly replied that "it is at party meetings that policy questions are thrashed out. Should the public be denied all information about these debates, which are clearly of public interest? There is a tendency nowadays to limit the activities of reporters ... to receiving official handouts." The Observer was immediately joined by the Times. "It is no function of newspapers," thundered the Times, "to keep politicians' secrets for them."

Last week the Labor Party National Executive Committee met again to take drastic action to plug the leaks. Eying one another suspiciously as possible sources of the leaks, the members pushed through a resolution that all meetings are to be considered as "private and confidential, and no statement should be regarded as accurate unless issued by the party's office." The British press had an effective answer to that. Lord Beaverbrook's lusty Daily Express (circ. 4,077,833) gleefully ran leaks from Labor's party meeting to consider what to do about leaks to the press. Said the Express triumphantly: "Leakage No.1: it was Mr. Harold Wilson, M.P., Bevanite and ex-Cabinet minister, who moved the resolution. Leakage No. 2: it was carried unanimously. Leakage No. 3: Mr. Herbert Morrison dropped his idea of seeking legal sanctions against newspapers who get their own reports of socialist proceedings."

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