First in a Decade

Britain's coalition Government, which had successfully withstood the stress & strain of war, showed signs of collapsing under the pressure of peace. This week 1,100 delegates of the Labor Party, biggest (170 seats) opposition group in Parliament, met at Blackpool. The chief question before them was: whether to accept Prime Minister Winston Churchill's invitation to stay in the Government until the Japanese war is won--or to quit the coalition forthwith. The answer was emphatic. The conference voted unanimously to quit. Party wiseacres promptly predicted that Mr. Churchill would ask the King to dissolve Parliament and call a general election, probably in July.

Heroes & Platforms. It will be Britain's first general election in a decade. Men & women of 30 will vote for the first time in their lives. A realignment of constituencies will raise the number of seats from 615 to a record 640 (thus making the new Commons even more overcrowded than the old). Of the 1,668 candidates already listed, 600 are Tory, 580 Labor, 400 Liberal, 40 Common Wealth, 22 Communist. About a quarter of them will be drawn from the services. Three percent will be women. All parties will play up their war heroes.

All parties are scrubbing up their platforms. Under Beaverbrook prodding, the conservatives will press for free enterprise, with state control only where necessary, e.g., social security, housing. Their slogan: Win With Winnie.

Labor will counter with "full socialism," i.e., immediate nationalization of the chief industries, state control of employment, housing, agriculture, social security. Its program will be emphatically put across by the Attlee-Bevin-Morrison-Greenwood quadrumvirate.

The Liberals will steer a middle course, offering both free enterprise and nationalization to achieve "minimum economic standards for all." The core of Liberal policy will in effect be the social-security and full-employment plans of the Party's brightest luminary, Sir William Beveridge. The election will give a historic answer to a critical question: will Britain swing to the left, like Europe, or stand pat with the conservatives, who have led it to victory in World War II? Conservatives were confident that if the election could be held soon, before wartime memories fade, Winnie would win again.

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