A Modest Proposal
SIR,—Surely that champion political rigger the Prime Minister should not allow 'a little local dif- ficulty' like the Leyton by-election result to prevent him getting 'the best Foreign Secretary he's got' into the House of Commons. His solution is simple.
1. Let him instruct Ray Gunter to direct the labour of the Member for Ebbw Vale into the sphere (where there is so conspicuous a shortage of it) of a life-duke where he can work a twenty-hour week as minister in any ministry Mr. Wilson chooses to invent.
2. Let him approach the Labour Party chairman in Ebbw Vale with a promise to bring in a Welsh Independence Bill at once with provision for proper financial aid to the new emergent Wales. He, the chairman, to be appointed by the outgoing colonial power as Minister of Finance. As a quid pro quo the Ebbw Vale Labour Association will not run a candidate in the forthcoming by-election consequent on Mr. Michael Foot's elevation to the peerage.
3. Let Mr. Gordon Walker stand for Ebbw Vale as a Welsh Nationalist.
It seems to me that in this way he has a good chance of reversing the shameful verdict of Leyton. I would put his majority at at least 206. This scheme has the added appeal that it would finally prove that the Labour Party has no racial prejudice whatever. What's wrong with being a Welshman anyway? Aren't they just the same as you and me. sir? Finally, what should appeal to Mr. Gordon Walker would be that when Welsh Independence became a fact he would be well in line to be the first Prime Minister with a seat at the Commonwealth Prime Ministers' Conference and one at the UN. He would not only have a chance to make Richard Thomas and Baldwin pay, but he could also bring nuclear disarmament to Wales. It is wonderful what one can do with a majority of three.
STANLEY OF ALDERLEY
Val la Give, Grouville, Jersey, CI
PS.—I have been reading The Corridors of Power.
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