1432 The "Economist", semi-official organ of big business in this country, most of whose readers consist mainly of directors, etc, is backing George Brown for the leadership of Parliamentary Labour Party. In its Jamary 26th. issue it had this to say:"..... the Labour Party has to choose a new. leader for itself and prospectively also for Eritain within two weeks. It would be absurd to be neutral about so crucial a choice , The candidate whom the "The Economist" would most like to see chosen is Mr, George Brown, Mr, Brown has sometimes incurred the reputation of being a very rude man, a man who does not suffer opposition particularly tactfully, a man untutored in some of the most complex economic and other technical problems of the day. There is oven one respect in which Mr. Brown might push forward Labour's imago into the new age more rapidly than Mr.Gaitskell did after 1955. Mr. Gaitskoll's s0Cislian sprang from a middle-class sympathiser's compassion for the Notts, miners to whom he lectured on economics in the 1930's, and he did not always find it easy to grasp that old and insular down—trodden England under which they had suffered was now out of date, Mir. Brown's socialiam is that of an errand boy who has risen to the brink of the horizon of the highest executive office in the lands; he is the child of m age. when the intelligent thrusters have learned to look forward in opportunity."
But the Economist does not appear to trust Harold "'ilson: "no one can say for certain what effect tho sobering powers of high office would have on Mr, Wilson's over-agility of mind;-perhaps for some of us old memories of where lir."ilson stood at Scarborough in 1960, and in other recent crises of the Labour party, die too hard."