Challenge

"Everyone knows this Parliament is dead," cried Winston Churchill in the House of Commons last week.

The four-year-old Parliament had just disposed of the last big item on Labor's 1945 election program: nationalization of the British steel industry. The House of Commons and the House of Lords, long at loggerheads over the steel bill (TIME, June 21, 1948), had worked out a compromise. The lords agreed to pass the bill without further ado if the government would not make it effective until after the 1950 general election. "Vesting day" for the steel industry was set for Jan. 1, 1951. Thus, if the Tories win, they can repeal the law before any steel plants are actually taken over by the government.

Churchill bluntly challenged Prime Minister Clement Attlee to send Parliament home and set the election for early in 1950. Attlee, slumped on the government front bench and looking funereal in his black coat and neat striped trousers, seemed not to hear. But London political dopesters now think the election will be held earlier than Labor had planned. Best guess: February or March.

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