THE Conservative Party has not increased its chance of attracting the votes of men and women of good will by its official adoption of Mr. Winston Churchill as a candidate at the next election. Mr. Churchill is everything by turns and nothing long. He began his political career as a Conservative. He was then for years a Liberal, and he is now a Conservative again. In one thing only has he been consistent: he has always opposed Protection, and his welcome into the bosom of Toryism is an indication that, despite Mr. Baldwin, Free Trade will not be one of the issues when Parliament is dissolved. But Mr. Churchill is a headstrong, irresponsible politician with a belief in himself which neither his capacity nor his achievements justify. He has a genius for stirring up strife and embittering controversy. He has never shown any appreciation of the tremendous problems of economic change and reconstruction with which the post-war world is faced. Were he again to be in a position of responsibility, the class-war would become a reality and the risk of revolution increased, and another world-war would become an awful possibility. Sanity shivers at the idea of this freakish egomaniac again having the power to misdirect the nation’s affairs. Mr. Winston Churchill has been forced on to the Tory party by Lord Birkenhead’s friends, and Lord Birkenhead is the most sinister figure in modern politics.

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