BRIGHTON BY-ELECTION

Otago Daily Times, Issue 25454, 8 February 1944, Page 3

BRIGHTON BY-ELECTION

REBUFF FOR MR CHURCHILL LONDON PRESS COMMENT LONDON-; Feb. 6. The Brighton by-election is viewed by the London Observer as a personal rebuff to the Prime Minister, Mr Churchill. The Conservative majority at the by-election on Friday was only 1939, compared’with 41,626 in 1935—the largest majority in British history. The Observer in an editorial says: “Mr Churchill is no longer his own master. He is the prisoner of a Coalition that still fails to mirror the new.will for progress and adventure.” The article states that Mr Churchill suffered a heavy personal defeat when his man only just scraped home in the safest of safe seats. This was because the Prime Minister made the suppression of criticism and opposition to his Government a matter of personal confidence in himself.

“All Europe is looking for a sign of the leadership and aid we gave in 1940, and already all Europe is disappointed,” the article adds. “Mr Churchill alone could make at once the kind of Coalition Party or policy that would harness the running tide, and yet, at the height of his power and prestige, he stays in the ‘ protective custody ’ of his present Coalition.”