A SPECTATOR'S NOTEBOOK W ELL: it's all over, or will be
very soon after these lines appear. And then the prophets will stand arraigned. There are plenty of them, and they must be judged by their predictions. One thing they have in common. Wherever actual figures have been ventured they represented always an anticipated Conservative, never an anticipated Labour, majority. To take them at random —the Evening Standard on Monday said 99 ; the Bournemouth Ernes, after canvassing the provincial editors to get local estimates, 76 ; The Observer's " cubers," 57, on the basis of the latest Gallup poll before last Sunday. And now, on the very morning of election day, the'News Chronicle gives the final Gallup percentages showing a prospective Conservative vote of 50 per cent., with Labour 46.5 and Liberal 3. The Daily Express's percentages on the same day were Conservative 50, Labour 46 and Liberal 31. These, of course, refer to votes ; no one expected the Liberals to get 3 per cent. of seats, i.e., 18 or 19. My own not very venturesome estimate was a Conservative majority of 50. Yet, after all, it may not be Conservatives but Labour. Then who will laugh ? Dr. Dalton for one. He gives Labour a majority of 60. * * -* *
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