Brighton Talks Back

Prime Minister Winston Churchill, acting as leader of Britain's Conservative Party, made a blunder. Irked by the Tory defeat at Skipton (TIME, Jan. 24), he took a strong stand against Independent Bruce Dutton Briant, who had dared to oppose a Conservative Coalitionist in a Parliamentary by-election at Brighton. Said Churchill in a letter to Brighton voters: Briant's claim of supporting the Prime Minister, while running as an Independent, was a "swindle." Resentful Brightonians did not elect Briant, a local barrister, but they did give him enough votes to give the Conservatives a scare.

In Brighton's last Parliamentary contest (1935), a Tory candidate won by 41,437 votes over his nearest opponent. Last week the Churchill-Coalition candidate, Flight Lieut. William Teeling, defeated Independent Briant by a bare 1,958 votes (14,594 to 12,636). Conservative alarm was due as much to Churchill's error as to the outcome. Tories rely on Churchill's enormous popularity, and his skill at using it, to help win the next general election.

Britons have a steadily deepening interest in U.S. as well as home politics. Two weeks ago the Yorkshire Post, owned by Anthony Eden's family, asked Americans to reelect Mr. Roosevelt. Last week the Church of England Newspaper (which, despite its name, speaks only for a Low Church faction) plunked for Term IV: "To pretend that the [U.S.] election this year is the concern only of the American people is just stupid. . . . [It] is fraught with incalculable significance for all mankind."

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