A clutch of "firsts" emerged from a hotly contested by-election in the London dormitory of North Lewisham last week. It was the first seat to be won by Labor from the Tories in a by-election since 1939, the first seat to be lost in a by-election by a government since the war, and the first (and somewhat inauspicious) test of the popularity of Prime Minister Harold Macmillan's six-week-old Conservative government.
The Laborites, cock-a-hoop with the victory, had won with 1) a more attractive candidate (capable Barrister Niall MacDermot), 2) a solid, close-to-the-pocketbook issue in a proposed Tory bill to relax rent controls,...
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