GREAT BRITAIN: Hollow Victory

Five times in February the Tories huffed & puffed to blow the government’s house down. Each time they failed. Last week, on the first birthday of the present Parliament, the Tories forced another vote in the House of Commons. This time they won, but it was a hollow victory. The previous votes were on major confidence motions—coal, steel, meat, defense, groundnuts—on which a government defeat would have meant a general election. The sixth vote was on a minor issue: a Tory bill to extend from 25 to 60 miles the range within which private truckers might compete with nationalized transport. The Laborites made no great effort to get out their votes, lost 242 to 234.