This report on Britain's election was cabled by TIME Correspondent Andre Laguerre:
WINSTON LEONARD SPENCER CHURCHILL is fond of his collection of goldfish. When he approaches their pools in the lovely grounds of his country house at Chartwell Manor in Kent, the goldfish dart eagerly toward him. Churchill, wearing his familiar siren suit, an overcoat of a peculiarly bilious pea green draped over his shoulders, was feeding them one afternoon this week. One hand held the inevitable black cigar, and the other dipped into the tin of fish food proffered by his bodyguard.
"I won't be doing this much longer," he observed. "In a week or two they will go to the bottom of the pool to hibernate. Just as well, perhaps. I might be too busy." Whether he will be busy as Prime Minister or again as leader
of His Majesty's Opposition in the House of Commons about to be elected was, of course, a question vitally preoccupying Britain, the world, and Winston Churchill.
When I arrived at Chartwell I was greeted with a quick-fire question: "What is your idea about it all? Now, don't say something to please me."
"Well, sir, I think it would be a good thing for most people if you won this election."
Gruffly, Churchill shot back: "It will be a very hard thing for people if I win, I can promise you that. They will all have to do very much more."
Churchill, in the words of a friend, "wants sweat and tears, in order to avoid the blood—and so that when we think of Great Britain we don't have to visualize the first word in inverted commas."
To a nation economically overextended, vitiated by controls and egalitarianism, puzzled and upset by loss of prestige overseas, and in the main jealously attached to the social gains made by her poorer classes since the war, Winston Churchill this week broadcast a jesting reminder: "The day is Oct. 25—make a note of it in your diary."
About four registered electors in five will remember, and vote. The betting in London is a little under 2 to 1 that they will return the Tories to office. The present Labor majority is so razor-thin that a small swing would bring Churchill back. Labor holds 54 seats by fewer than 3,000 votes. No landslide is needed —merely a consistent trickle—to give the Tories a majority of 40 or 50 seats, which they regard as the minimum with which they could work for five years.
The Tories have a better prospect of winning this election than they had in 1945 or 1950. But they are not improving their chances with a campaign which is being less smartly conducted than Labor's.
The Iranian issue, which the Tories have ridden hard, is not quite as advantageous for the Tories as it ought to be. Churchill is justified in saying that Labor's Foreign Secretary Herbert Morrison does not have the right to put the question, "Well, would you have gone to war to save the oil?", because if Churchill had been in office the situation would not have arisen. But the fact remains that Morrison does ask the question, and so do Socialists all over the country.