Keep Calm

Britain's Parliament reopened last week to the din of Laborites quarreling among themselves. The wounds Labor had inflicted on itself at the party conference in Morecambe two weeks earlier were still suppurating. The Attleeites now ceased to hope that they could cure galloping Bevanitis without drastic surgery. At a meeting in Stalybridge, former Chancellor of the Exchequer Hugh Gaitskell openly accused the Bevanite faction of playing ball with Communists. "I was told by some observers," he said, "that about one-sixth of the constituency party delegates [at Morecambe] appear to be Communists or Communist-inspired ... It is now quite clear . . . from what we saw at Morecambe that we were wrong to let all this go on without reply."

The words were a rallying cry to all the Attleeites. At a meeting of parliamentary front benchers Attlee himself cast aside the cloak of neutrality he has tried up to now to wear as party leader. In tart, hot temper, he outlined an ultimatum to the Bevanites--disband the party-within-a-party and stop calling names in public. Nye Bevan, his eyes round with affected innocence, faced the challenge with the wounded mien of a child accused of palming the queen in a game of Old Maid. With hands spread wide, he offered to throw his group meetings open to all and let "those who suspect us come and hear for themselves."

At this point, 100 more or less neutral Laborites in Parliament, fearful of the effects of surgery, formed themselves into a "Keep Calm Group" to consider further first-aid measures. Across the aisle, Tories looked on with ill-concealed satisfaction.

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