Who Switched at Ipswich?

"The people have turned from the Tories, but they have not yet turned to us," said Opposition Leader Hugh Gaitskell at the Labor Party conference last month. Last week the diagnosis was confirmed in a by-election in the ancient East Anglian market town of Ipswich, held to fill the parliamentary seat left vacant by the death of former Laborite Works Minister Richard Stokes.

Labor Candidate Dingle Foot, brother of newly appointed Cyprus Governor Sir Hugh Foot (see below), won in a walk as the Tory vote slumped by nearly 10,000 votes from 1955. But Foot's own returns slid 5,500 votes below the Labor mark of two years ago. Biggest gainers were the third-party Liberals, who entered their first candidate since 1950, polled 20% of the total vote. Pointing to similar gains in other recent contests, Liberals talked hopefully of a big parliamentary comeback for the party of Gladstone, Palmerston and Lloyd George. More probably, the apparent Liberal strength reflected simple voter dissatisfaction with both the government's failure to hold down the cost of living and Labor's alternative of selective controls--a petulance more readily indulged in in by-elections than in the decisive general election.

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