MUCH TALENT

Evening Post, Volume CXL, Issue 56, 4 September 1945, Page 6

MUCH TALENT

THE NEW COMMONS

"PARLIAMENT OF TECHNICIANS"

(Special P.A. Correspondent.) Rec. 10.50 a.m. LONDON, Sept. 3. Parliament is in recess until October 9. All comment meanwhile emphasises that the new House of Commons which assembled last month for the first time revealed a more radical change 'than could have been gathered from the election figures alone. The attendance was high, attention was keen, and the succession of maiden speeches was as remarkable for quality as for volume. Commenting, the "Economist" says: "It is now becoming apparent that the new Labour member is a very different animal from the old —and by the same token from the Labour Minister. The gulf between the Treasury bench and the back benches must be greater today than at any uther time in Parliamentary history. This is not merely a gulf of age, but of character. The typical Labour Minister is an elderly, cautious trade unionist whose formal education stopped at the age of 12 or lower. The typical Labour member is keen, intelligent, and young, a professional man with a brilliant university career behind him." The "New Statesman and Nation" says that the Government is almost embarrassed by the profusion of comI petence and talent, and adds: "The old [ type of 'working class' M.P. may soon ' disappear. Secondary education and war service have combined to produce the remarkable result that one could j not tell, from listening to 45 Labour maiden speakers, who was of working and who was of middle-class origin. Even more important, the question seemed irrelevant. They were all Socialists—and they were all experts on some facet of home or world politics. In a sense, this is the first Parliament of technicians —and that may be the most revolutionary thing about it."

Mr. Vernon Bartlett, M.P., comments in the "Spectator" on the "whirlwind of enthusiasm" which is sweeping through the Palace of Westminster, and declares that the newcomers have been self-confident and clear, and almost without exception made speeches which were interesting in themselves. "So many of them have high intellectual attainments," he said. "They have commanded men in critical and dangerous situations. They have experience of international administration. They are young, and not ashamed to have ideals."