Great Britain: Another Tory Setback

Dundee, a dour, slum-ridden industrial city (pop. 182,900) on Scotland's east coast, is famed for its marmalade and maverick politics. It has sent only two Tory M.P.s to Westminster in 131 years, and in 1922 threw out Winston Churchill, then a Liberal, in favor of the only Prohibitionist ever to sit in Parliament. In 1959 the Labor Party only managed to hang onto Dundee by 714 votes, and so, in last week's by-election, the Tories had hopes that the impact of a new, Scottish Prime Minis ter might help to defeat Labor. Instead, the government suffered another set back. The progressive Conservative candidate, a popular lawyer, lost to his Laborite opponent, a trade-union official, by 4,955 votes, a Tory drop of 8.8% from the last general election.

Part of the outcome was caused by purely local issues (example: recent government proposals to lower protective tariffs on jute, which would jeopardize an industry that employs 20% of the city's work force), and the loss was not as sharp as the Tories' recent defeat at thriving, middle-class Luton. But the Tories were painfully aware that they have little time to reverse Labor's gains before elections, probably next spring.

One of the most popular Tory leaders, elfin-faced, effervescent Viscount Hailsham, last week followed the example of former Lord Home, signed away his titles and became the Right Honorable Quintin Hogg. Leaving the "political ghetto" of the House of Lords, he will probably be elected to Commons from St. Marylebone, a solidly Tory, London constituency. "Lord Hail-sham," said he, "is dead. God bless Quintin Hogg."