A Little Goading

For months Winston Churchill's Tories smiled in smug satisfaction at the division in Labor's ranks, and sometimes slyly tried to widen the breach. Last week the Laborites were gazing hopefully at a small rift in the ranks of the Conservatives. It was led by a group of young Tory backbenchers.

For the six months that the Conservatives have been in power, the backbenchers have had nothing but alibis to offer their constituents in place of the golden promises made on the hustings of more red meat and fewer controls. In a local election, depression-ridden Lancashire had just voted Laborite for the first time in its history. Eleven of the rebellious Tory backbenchers seized on the Lancashire slump to demand that Chancellor Rab Butler lift the purchase tax on textiles. When he would not, four more Tories joined the revolt.

Last week Churchill's youngsters were getting so rebellious that the master himself decided to drop in on the backbench organization still known as the 1922 Committee, though only a handful of today's backbenchers were M.P.s in 1922. The Prime Minister got a rousing cheer when he told the rebels of the government's plans "to denationalize road haulage at the earliest possible moment." Then, step by step, the Prime Minister covered the points at issue. "He went over the same old ground," said one backbencher, "but somehow, if the Old Man took you from Piccadilly Circus to Kensington every day for a year, the trip would still be fascinating."

Before the week was done, the wily old political warrior made known his plans to give junior cabinet rank to several backbenchers, including brainy young Iain MacLeod, who successfully argued down Nye Bevan last month, and who writes a bridge column for the Sunday Times.

"There's still nobody like him," said one mollified rebel after Churchill's appearance, "but he'll be all the better for a little goading from us."

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