POLITICS DISAPPEAR.

Auckland Star, Volume LVII, Issue 301, 20 December 1926, Page 7

POLITICS DISAPPEAR.

PERSONALITIES PREDOMINANT ; j " i STRANGE MOB PSYCHOLOGY. ' 1 LONDON, December 19. The contest in the Smethwick byelection will go down in history as having marked a new era in electioneering. Politics as such have no part in the contest except in name. The campaign ' has really become an experiment in ' mob psychology of a kind hitherto unknown. ; This is attributed largely to a section , ,of the Press, which is concentrating its I . efforts to making Mr. Oswald Mosley, the Labour candidate, as notorious as j possible. Lady Cynthia Mosley, his j wife, also figures prominently in the '■ \ limelight. | It is described as something absurd [ ■ that she should be associated with the [ Socialist movement. She and her hus- , band are subjects of political cartoons t of quite an unusual character. Her title , has been construed into plain "Missus." Mr. Mosley's father, Sir Oswald Mos- •' ley, Bart., has been dragged in with a I declaration that his son has not done an - honest day's work in his life. The meetings are more or less like university "rags." The comments of - humble folk regarding Mr. Mosley's ; social status are widely published. 5 j To-day, Lady Cynthia was hoisted by a crowd on to a precarious perch on a > wall adjoining the Conservative candidate's meeting. The latter chivalrously ; gave way to her, but he declared that i he was not going to strike his colours! at the bidding of "any aristocratic; pirates flying the Red Flag." j