GREAT BRITAIN'S SNAP ELECTION
Cranston, Maurice
Great Britain's Snap Election By MAURICE CRANSTON London NO one confesses to want the general election with which Great Britain has been suddenly confronted. The Liberal and Labor Parties wanted...
...would then be asked with embarrassing insistence...
...The Liberal and Labor Parties wanted to wait until October...
...Can we blame him...
...The Central Office believed that by Autumn curtailment of war production would have led to unemployment...
...The struggle will be on fundamental political principles— a straight contest between socialism and free enterprise (with the Liberals, under Sinclair and Beveridge, a half-way group...
...Why then has the election come...
...Voting in the general election won't be for full employment or better houses or world security...
...That is why Mr...
...and that the one chance of averting an electoral landslide to the Left would be to cash in immediately on Mr...
...It is the result of Conservative Central Office strategy...
...According to The New Statesman, the unofficial "generalissimo" of the Tories' election campaign, Lord Beaverbrook, (assisted ably by Mr...
...The British Government must be secure at home...
...The Common Wealth victory at Chelmsford must have been another blow...
...READ from afar, the programs of the 2 chief parties in this general election are almost indistinguishable...
...that the question, "Where are the houses...
...But to be secure, it must also be continuous...
...Churchill's prestige as the architect of victory...
...It is, however, more than any other election in modern British history, a conflict of ideologies...
...British foreign policy has suffered many setbacks abroad—especially in Russia's breach of the Yalta agreement on Poland...
...The Tories promise full employment, higher living standards, efficient industrial plant, prosperous agriculture, more and better houses, social security and "equal opportunities" in education...
...Brendon Bracken) had been pressing the Prime Minister to agree to a snap election as soon as possible after the end of the European war...
...In truth there is no specific current issue on which the parties are clearly divided...
...Churchill has his doubts about being returned to office...
...That is why Mr...
...Second reason for rejection of the Liberal-Labor plea for an October election is less creditable...
...With the Polish problem still unsolved, with the Middle Eastern situation coming to a head, and Austria and Yugoslavia still areas of uncertainty, the Prime Minister needs a strong hand...
...Churchill asked his Liberal and Labor colleagues to stay with him...
...Shall future Britain be as it was in the "Good Old Days," or is it to go forward to a new era of the Common Man...
...All 3 parties promise as much, and none is likely to achieve more in a time of world shortages than the other...
...And Mr...
...Churchill would not consent to an election in October...
...Chiefly for 2 reasons, neither of them generally recognized...
...Ernest Bevin's 12 points in behalf of the Labor Party are: world security organization, planned world economy, international control of raw materials, international currency stability, Empire preference in trade, suppression of cartels, continued military conscription, reduced industrial conscription, more freedom for India, protection of small states, and revival of the League of Nations' spirit and work...
...Churchill would have liked to wait until Japan was beaten...
...When I heard him speak at Bristol some weeks ago, I was struck both by his nervous manner and by the insistence with which he said "I- - -or my successor" in referring to future policy...
...The first and most serious is that Churchill doesn't feel he can face Stalin and Truman in the critical situation of today if he is not certain of more than a few months in office...
Vol. 9 • July 1945 • No. 27
