Skirmish Won

The Labor Party, with Cockney Herbert Morrison leading the pack, was out to goad Winston Churchill. Up before the House of Commons last week was Churchill's plan to denationalize Britain's long-haul trucking business, first of the promised Tory programs to undo six years of Socialist expropriations. Churchill tried to stay on the sidelines while other Tories pushed the bill through. Morrison was determined to get at The Old Man himself.

"Why could not the Prime Minister, he being the author of this deed, have the courage to get up and expound the policy of the government?" Morrison taunted. "Why must he ... put himself into such a position that he protects himself as far as possible from counterattack?"

Rare Sound. At last Churchill was stung. Masking his hurt in a wicked twinkle, the Prime Minister got to his feet, observed that Morrison is "almost what one might call a conscientious objector." It was a personal blow--a dig at Morrison's record as a C.O. in World War I. The House broke into boos, which it rarely does. Morrison let the gibe pass, and continued: "This anarchist-minded government . . . come along with this tragic, destructive, badly drafted [proposal] which not only puts the clock back but slashes it to pieces . . . [It's] a surrender to the Tory wild men . . ."

Winston Churchill was beset by the bigger problems of Britain's worsening economy (see above), but the smoke of parliamentary battle set his nostrils aquiver. He passed word to the chief government whip and, in keeping with House courtesy, a note was slipped to the Opposition bench: the Prime Minister would join the debate after all.

Morrison argued on. When Labor gets back, he said, it will "return to public ownership" as many of the denationalized trucks, garages and depots as it wants to. But to almost everyone's relief, he left the Socialists a loophole, just in case they found themselves unable or unwilling to renationalize in the future. "We reserve the right," said Morrison, "to leave in the hands of private owners services or vehicles which . . . are not worth having."

A Bath & Clean Clothes. While the debate went on, Churchill left the chamber for 10 Downing Street, bathed and slipped into dinner clothes (dictating to a secretary as he did so). In 40 minutes he was back and on his feet. "Does [Morrison] really believe," said he with a rumbling chuckle, "that I am really afraid of opening a debate? . . . The spectacle of a number of middle-aged gentlemen who are my political opponents being in a state of uproar and fury is really quite exhilarating to me." With a thoroughness that showed how Morrison's jabs had touched him, he answered Morrison's arguments point by point, admitted that his scheme had flaws, and welcomed suggestions. But he was not going to let Labor's threat to renationalize scare him. "If . . . taken seriously," he said, "it would, of course, affect the value of the national property which we propose to sell. That will not deter us . . ."

Churchill's slim Conservative majority agreed. With 305 votes to the Opposition's 283, they gave tentative Commons approval to the first of Churchill's prescriptions for a return to free enterprise.

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