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Looking haggard, but as grimly self-assured as ever, Minister Shinwell put the success of the indefinite blackout on Britons themselves. He spoke gloomily: "I say to domestic and industrial consumers that if they decline to cooperate in this emergency, we will find ourselves in the next ten days in a condition of complete disaster."
Shinwell was hit by blasts from the Laborite press, as well as by demands to resign in the Conservative papers. He had only one press defender: London's Communist Daily Worker (it blamed the Tories). London's Daily Herald, staunch friend of the Labor Government, severely took the Cabinet to task for failing to keep the public informed of the developing crisis. Said the Herald:
"We think that several of the Ministers deceive themselves; they regard the whole electorate as enthusiastic converts to Socialism. They believe that, however trying and irksome our present troubles may be, the average man will blissfully murmur: 'Attlee is in 10 Downing Street. All's right with the world.'. . . Labor is justifying the voters' faith. . . . But this is the transition period. . . . This is the time when the faint hearts may turn away from us."
The Tories strained to take it out on Socialism. In the House of Commons Winston Churchill flashed some of his old form and fire: "The brute fact is that Socialism means mismanagement ... incompetence. . . . Let us hope the nation will realize from this flagrant example the downward stairway upon which they are now thrust and down which they have descended only the first few steps."
"Resign! Resign!" shouted-Tory members when Shinwell rose to defend himself.
Shinwell had put the Government on a hot spot. But since the Labor Party had a clear majority and there was no split in its ranks, the Government probably would not fall. Nevertheless Clement Attlee's regime was in the worst crisis of its 18 months in power and the nation had had its worst jolt since the buzz-bombs began to fall.