Let's Go to 1945 Mr. Wilson's meeting at the Albert
Hall on Sunday was a fervent occasion. Lord Attlee was sitting on the platform, silent and enigmatic, to give substance to Mr. Wilson's invocation of the spirit of 1945. (Mr. Brown was there, too, to prompt a hint of pleasant scepticism at the trumpeting of 'unity.') Mr. Wilson was not quite at his oratorical best, but the response was ardent. In truth, it did remind me rather of 1945—not so much of the Labour election meet- ings as I remember them, however, as of the triumphal gatherings afterwards. Mr. Wilson had a joke at the expense of Mr. Enoch Powell It was • not unusual, he said, for a party to probe deeply into its political philosophy after an election defeat; but the Tories had started the argument before the defeat. No doubt some Tories are inclined to declare their eggs addled in advance of hatching day. But there is equally a tendency for Labour to start numbering off its fine plump birds before a shell has been punctured.
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