: The following article from this wesk's conomist is remarkable for ite cynical appreciation of democracy and the role of the Labour Party. I+ certainly should put the left on guard against any machinations to bring about the changes it prescribes: Ed, note.
"Nothing concentrates a politician's mind so mich as the vision of power, For the Labour Party, an unprece dented period of internal peace has been the fruit of this concentration; and some members of the parliamentary party (who have allegedly got the chief whip, Mr, Bowlen, on their side) are eager that nothing shall be allowed to spoil the idyll, The plan now being canvassed around is that the party should for once give up the annual elect~ ions in which the parliamentary party chooses its leader, deputy leadar, chief whip and twelve other shadow cabine? Sek artor the now parliamentary session bogins,
"This annual election is really a sort of annual popularity contest. It gives grudge-bearers among Labour MPs = whether politically or personally notivated —- the best of all opportunities to stir up the quarrels to which the party is already too mich inclined, This year the elections have been eagorly awaited by some of the party's left-wingers who feel that they might turn out badly for Mr, George Brown, their arch bugbear; if they cannot take this last chance to unseat Mr. Brown he will still be in position as deputy leader of the party at the time of the general election — however long the Government may put it off,
"Tt would in fact seem that some of Mr. Brown's former supporters have turned against him - even some of those who voted for him to the bitter end in the elections for a leader to replace Mr, Gaitakell, when he was besten by Mr. “Tilson, There is no good reason for this, save that novhing fails like lack of success; the mistakes of a defeated candidate for leadership are bound to be conspicuous against the ready-made (if in this case deserved) triumphs of a new leader. However infuriating he can sometimes be, to get rid of lir. Brown now would be an act of rather unlovely ingratitude by the Labour party, and (more important) a misfortune for the country that faces the prospect of being governed by that party.
There is, however, another reason why Labour would be wise to give its elections a miss this year; it would set a useful precedent to start reducing Labour's traditionll proneness to annual bouts of olectionian, It is pretty absurd that the Conservative party works so much through cliques that it cannot even elect itself a leader when it is in opposition, I+ is even sill— ier that Labour's attachment to supposed "democratic principles" should lead it to conduct its affairs with so many orgies of public voting, complete with squabbles and personal log-rolling, every single year, in so many different organs of the party. ; "The annual olection of leaders does not even have the justification of practical value, If Labour were to win power, its leader would by no means be bound by the shadow cabinet results in picking his non—shadow Cabinet. And, as the story of Mr. Wilson's election to the leadership showed the personal preferences demonstrated the previous autumn -— when Mr. Brom defeated Mr. ‘ilson in the contest for the deputy leadership - were not strong enough to overcome tho parliamentary party's belief that, while Mr, Brown is the best deputy leader they have got, he was not the man to replace Mr, Gaitskell as potential prime minister, A break this year with this empty tradition would not merely be a wheeze for getting Mr, Erown out of trouble, It could do the Labour party a power of good = structurally, in changing the undesirable personal pressures which it inflicts upon all who prominently serve it, and also, one suspects, clectorally,"