EXPELLED BY LABOUR

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXVI, Issue 23256, 27 January 1939, Page 8

EXPELLED BY LABOUR

With the expulsion of Sir Stafford Cripps, the British Labour Party has lost one of its most brilliant but at the same time one of its most embarrassing members. Sir Stafford is one of the intelligentsia of the Left. He has wealth, position and ability, but, in spite of his Winchester education and his successes at the Bar, he is that queer political type—an hereditary Socialist. His father was Lord Parmoor, one of the first Labour peers, and his mother was a sister of the redoubtable Mrs. Sidney Vt ebb. Ever since he was appointed Solicitor-General by Mr. Mac Donald in 1930 he has been a source of worry to the professional politicians of the party. He ranks far higher in intelligence than most of the other Socialist leaders, but, as one commentator has said, "he does much of his reasoning in the open at public meetings." This has led him on frequent occasions into the most bewildering verbal indiscretions, causing a Labour member to remark recently that "every time Cripps opens his mouth he loses us 20,000 votes." Sir Stafford's expulsion does not mean his first clash with party authority. His attempt to form a Socialist League in 1936 caused a measure of internal strife, and a year earlier he had resigned from the party executive on the grounds that sanctions against Italy were calculated to lead to war. His latest effort has been to revive his idea of a Popular Front in opposition to Mr. Chamberlain, and to that end he would have the Labour Party marching side by side with such oddly chosen companions as Mr. Churchill, Mr. Duff Cooper and the Duchess of Atholl. The party, however, is firmly against general collaboration and is wedded to its class-conscious sectarianism. But it is amusing to reflect that in its fierce desire for armed intervention all over Europe, Labour as a whole has turned just as complete a political somersault ais the man whom it has banished.