is losing popularity steadily. Despite this, Macmillanremains confident and Lord Hailsham wanders about the country making ebullient speeches. What drift there is against the Government is not coming to Labour but is going to the Liberals.
The Labour Party on the other hand is in really good shape. Hugh Gaitskell has emerged as a popular Leader in Parliament, although he lacks certain dramatic qualities and loses effectiveness thereby. Nye Bevan is determined to be Foreign Secretary and is touring the world making speeches and influencing people. Whether he is winning friends is another question. His Russian talks were evidently cordial and he is at this moment engaged in lecturing the Americans about their own affairs and policies in a way that is causing a lot of excitement, but not a little interest. Americans like people who ‘talk turkey’. There is none of the diplomatic hypocrisy about Nye Bevan. I do not altogether trust him, for I think he lacks the qualities of self-confidence, serenity, generosity and personal loyalty, which are desperately necessary for high office. On the other hand he has energy, imagination, the gift for good human relations, directness, courage, vividness of expression, a wide view, a good political sense, a colourful personality, most lovable faults and a lot of other things which are missing in those who possess the qualities he lacks.
Thursday 5 December
To Robin Day’s party. He was voted TV personality of the year yesterday. It is a tremendous honour that he richly deserves. He was celebrating by producing a girlfriend who was Miss Great Britain – a not very glamorous blonde. All our Oxford contemporaries were there.
Saturday 7 December
Drove to Oxford for the Nuffield College dance. Caroline came down by train from London and we had dinner with David Butler beforehand in his rooms. Nuffield is vigorous and forward-looking. It has absolute equality between men and women and dose camaraderie between teacher and student. It draws its Fellows from a wide social background. There is no snobbery about it at all.
Tuesday 7 January 1958
Today’s sensational news of Thorneycroft’s resignation has reawakened everyone to politics again with a bang.
The political implications of this resignation are not hard to see. The question at stake was whether the Government’s economic policy should be carried to the point where the structure of the welfare state was to be partially dismantled. The Prime Minister and most of the Cabinet shrank from a course of action which would have such grave political consequences. Thorneycroft was willing to wield the axe even against the Social Services.
Inside the Conservative Party therefore, this is a left versus right struggle.The Butler wing have won a tactical victory over the wild men of the City. We should all be grateful for small mercies but the consequences for the Conservative Party need to be assessed.
There is already a nucleus of disgruntled right-wingers inside the ranks of the Tory MPs. They first appeared in 1954 as the Suez Group. During the war against Egypt in November 1956 they thought they had captured the Prime Minister. Then came the sell-out and the humiliation of the evacuation. Eight of them resigned the Whip and decided to sit as Independents. They are still there in open opposition.
Now Thorneycroft, Birch and Powell are thrown up as real leaders of this dissident group. The financial issues on which they have resigned will attract the support of the Independent Conservatives. And the Cyprus problem looms up right ahead.
Tuesday 10 February
To Lime Grove for Nye Bevan’s TV party political programme. Nye arrived a bit late and was just impossible for the first three-quarters of an hour. He launched into an attack on the BBC for bias, distortion and discrimination against himself and all the rest. It was an ignorant attack, so easily refuted by the facts. The atmosphere was extremely tense and I was unhappy since I could
The Labour Party on the other hand is in really good shape. Hugh Gaitskell has emerged as a popular Leader in Parliament, although he lacks certain dramatic qualities and loses effectiveness thereby. Nye Bevan is determined to be Foreign Secretary and is touring the world making speeches and influencing people. Whether he is winning friends is another question. His Russian talks were evidently cordial and he is at this moment engaged in lecturing the Americans about their own affairs and policies in a way that is causing a lot of excitement, but not a little interest. Americans like people who ‘talk turkey’. There is none of the diplomatic hypocrisy about Nye Bevan. I do not altogether trust him, for I think he lacks the qualities of self-confidence, serenity, generosity and personal loyalty, which are desperately necessary for high office. On the other hand he has energy, imagination, the gift for good human relations, directness, courage, vividness of expression, a wide view, a good political sense, a colourful personality, most lovable faults and a lot of other things which are missing in those who possess the qualities he lacks.
Thursday 5 December
To Robin Day’s party. He was voted TV personality of the year yesterday. It is a tremendous honour that he richly deserves. He was celebrating by producing a girlfriend who was Miss Great Britain – a not very glamorous blonde. All our Oxford contemporaries were there.
Saturday 7 December
Drove to Oxford for the Nuffield College dance. Caroline came down by train from London and we had dinner with David Butler beforehand in his rooms. Nuffield is vigorous and forward-looking. It has absolute equality between men and women and dose camaraderie between teacher and student. It draws its Fellows from a wide social background. There is no snobbery about it at all.
Tuesday 7 January 1958
Today’s sensational news of Thorneycroft’s resignation has reawakened everyone to politics again with a bang.
The political implications of this resignation are not hard to see. The question at stake was whether the Government’s economic policy should be carried to the point where the structure of the welfare state was to be partially dismantled. The Prime Minister and most of the Cabinet shrank from a course of action which would have such grave political consequences. Thorneycroft was willing to wield the axe even against the Social Services.
Inside the Conservative Party therefore, this is a left versus right struggle.The Butler wing have won a tactical victory over the wild men of the City. We should all be grateful for small mercies but the consequences for the Conservative Party need to be assessed.
There is already a nucleus of disgruntled right-wingers inside the ranks of the Tory MPs. They first appeared in 1954 as the Suez Group. During the war against Egypt in November 1956 they thought they had captured the Prime Minister. Then came the sell-out and the humiliation of the evacuation. Eight of them resigned the Whip and decided to sit as Independents. They are still there in open opposition.
Now Thorneycroft, Birch and Powell are thrown up as real leaders of this dissident group. The financial issues on which they have resigned will attract the support of the Independent Conservatives. And the Cyprus problem looms up right ahead.
Tuesday 10 February
To Lime Grove for Nye Bevan’s TV party political programme. Nye arrived a bit late and was just impossible for the first three-quarters of an hour. He launched into an attack on the BBC for bias, distortion and discrimination against himself and all the rest. It was an ignorant attack, so easily refuted by the facts. The atmosphere was extremely tense and I was unhappy since I could
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