GREAT BRITAIN: Battle of the Manifestoes

Britain's Sir Anthony Eden last week officially moved bag and baggage into the Prime Minister's residence. Legally he has only a three weeks' lease on 10 Downing Street, but he is counting heavily on a five-year renewal at the general election, May 26. On their side, the Laborites were making plans to blast him right out again. They chose the biggest weapon they could find—the H-bomb, which had come near to blasting Labor's own ranks less than two months ago when Party Leader Clement Attlee and rebellious Nye Bevan fought about it in the House of Commons.

All that, however, was now forgotten. "There's nothing like the threat of annihilation," said one Laborite, "to bring chaps together." In a quiet meeting of the parliamentary Labor party, ousted Bevan was taken back into the fold without a whisper of opposition, and in the party manifesto outlining Labor's platform, Nye Sevan's stand against the nuclear bomb took first place, followed by the usual biting condemnation of everything Tory.

The Tories, in a manifesto of their own, replied with a ringing slogan, "Invest in Success," coined by Chancellor Rab Butler. "After these few years of Conservative government," crowed the manifesto, "the economy is in much better shape and the nation in much better heart. Now we must harness these efforts to a new and powerful surge of national effort." Despite their confident tone, and a widespread prognosis that they would increase their overall majority in the House of Commons, from their present 19 to perhaps 100 seats, the Tories are by no means a shoo-in. As ex-Prime Minister Churchill hurried back (troubled with a slight cold) from a rainy Sicilian vacation to stand at his successor's side, the News Chronicle's Gallup poll showed a 3½% decline in Tory strength, and the Tories now leading Labor by a mere 47½ to 47%.