CAMPAIGN NOTES

Press, Volume XCI, Issue 27663, 20 May 1955, Page 13

CAMPAIGN NOTES

Controversy On

Food Prices (Rec. 11 p.m.) LONDON, May 19. Dr. Edith Summerskill, the chairman of the Labour Party, has started the first controversy during the election campaign. Dr. Summerskill fired the opening shots in a broadcast when she spoke of “soaring food prices” under the Conservatives. This has produced an immediate threat of legal action from a big tea firm whose product was used to support the charges that the Churchill administration forced food prices to climb. Dr. Summerskill’s comparative quotations on cheese, butter, tea, and other commodities were officially rejected by the Conservatives. But Mr Morgan Phillips, the Labour Party’s general secretary, claimed that they were accurate. He said that the lower prices quoted were the official controlled maximum figures current when Labour left office in 1951, and the 1955 examples were based on prices actually paid by a Labour Party staff member on the day of the broadcast. “Shopping Bag Election”: According to the weekly magazine “Picture Post,” this is a “shopping bag” election for women who would vote for the party that convinced them that it could hold prices and check the cost of living. Liberals Criticised: Miss Pat. Hornsby-Smith, Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Health, does not like the election strategy of the Liberals. She says their leaders claim a Socialist government would be a national disaster. But 74 Liberal candidates were standing in Conserva-tive-held seats and only “28 in So-cialist-held seats. Miss Hornsby-Smith spoke with feeling for in a straight fight with Labour in 1951 she had a majority of 980. Now a Liberal has intervened. “No-one denies the right of Liberals to put up candidates,” she said. “But to slam the Socialists with words and yet concentrate their campaign on the Conservatives is as paradoxical as a teetotaller taking shares in a brewery.” County Council Voting: An analysis of voting in the London County Council election shows the total vote was only 32.4 per cent, of the electorate—the smallest since 1946. More than a third of the voters went to the polling booth between 7 p.m. and 9 p.m. Fear of Small Vote: The Labour Party is .reported to be worried about the possibility of a low percentage of the electorate voting in the General Election. They believe that the fewer who go to the polls, the more their candidates will suffer. The Labour newspaper, the “Daily Herald,” has repeatedly urged Socialists to make sure of voting.