"Disgusting," Cried a Tory

Clement Attlee in defeat still stuck to his promise to avoid "opposing for the sake of opposition." But his boys would be boys.

Last week Britain's Tory government asked the House of Commons to ratify the Japanese Peace Treaty, which Laborite Herbert Morrison signed at San Francisco. Attlee ordered the Labor Party to vote in favor. More than one-third did not. Though the treaty was approved (by 382 votes to 33), it was fought by the left-wing Bevanites (who think it is an American idea and therefore bad) and by Socialist M.P.s from textile and pottery constituencies, who fear a revival of Japanese competition. Another 80 Laborites abstained from voting.

Some of the Socialists behaved the same way with Churchill's proposal to create a new Home Guard, plans for which had been studied while Socialist Manny Shinwell was Minister of Defense. Last week it was Manny Shinwell who led the fight on the bill. Apparently trying to outdo Nye Bevan as a Tory-baiter, Manny kept the House of Commons in session for 20 hours, in the first all night sitting of the new Parliament. Those who stayed awake heard a great deal of cross and petty talk. When Shinwell announced that he needed a bath and a shave, a weary Tory brigadier asked him to get his throat cut, too. For talking back to the chair, Left-Winger Sydney Silverman, a tricky little hairsplitting parliamentarian, was suspended (for five days) by a vote of 194 to 147.

As dawn trickled in through the clerestory windows of the House, dozens of M.P.s were asleep at their posts, but Manny Shinwell was still mounted on the ramparts, hurling mud. "Representatives of the so-called gentlemanly party, who have lambasted members on this side . . . are now squealing because they are getting some of it back," he gloated. "It is impossible to insult some of them. If someone spat in their faces, they would think it was rain."

"Disgusting," cried a Tory. "I have not yet started," replied Shinwell, who finally stopped spitting at 10:20 a.m. "When I do, [you] will understand what Opposition is."

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