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"Maneuvering." A shilling for each prescription was not a new proposal: the Labor government itself once approved health charges. But to Rebel Nye Bevan, who had bolted Attlee's cabinet in protest, the chance was irresistible. He got to his feet with disarming bashfulness. He was suffering from a bad cold ("The medical profession has not assisted me very greatly in the last week"). M.P.s settled back, expecting Bevanite fireworks. But it wasn't Nye's day. His voice wheezed, he stammered, he was handicapped by his own admission, while Minister of Health, that a shilling a prescription was fair to everyone.*Only in his peroration did Bevan's class consciousness inflame Tory tempers. Tories have decreed, he said, "Let the poor die first . . . Keep only the well-to-do alive."
The Backroom Boy. It was Bevan at his crudest—but this time he got an answer. From an unnoticed back bench on the Tory side of the House came the clear, ringing challenge of a bright-eyed newcomer. He was studious Iain Macleod, 38, a Tory "backroom boy." Macleod startled the House with his opening remarks: "I want to deal closely and with relish with the vulgar, crude and intemperate speech to which the House of Commons has just listened." Then slowly, piece by piece, quoting Labor's own statements, he demolished Bevan's rhetoric. When Bevan, cut to the quick, jumped to his feet in protest, Macleod softly answered: "The right honorable gentleman has been a long time in this House, and I do not think he objects to this form of debating at all." Tories cheered.
At 10:10 p.m., as the House entered its second all-night sitting, Macleod was still on his feet, but Nye Bevan had fled.
Four hours later, at 2:29 a.m., the House approved the Tories' health bill (304-279). Tories and Socialists alike dragged themselves home to bed.
*Bevan's cynical explanation of his change in attitude: "When I accepted the shilling prescription charge, I was maneuvering . . ."