A SPECTATOR 'S NOTEBOOK
THAT the first full Ministerial office to fall vacant would go to Mr. John Strachey has long been taken for granted, for the Under- Secretary for Air has shown himself in a different class from any other junior Minister. Whether it is a matter for congratulation that the Ministry of Food should turn out to be his destiny is a doubtful question. Nowhere else would a newcomer have to face so exacting a test, and it is the best of all tributes to Mr. Strachey to say that everyone expects him to emerge from it triumphant. So far as the House is concerned the new Minister is strongest where the old Minister was weakest. Sir Ben Smith possessed a blustering style that constantly irritated and sometimes angered the House. Mr. Strachey is invariably conciliatory and courteous and always knows his subject through and through. Here he has been enjoying an advantage that will not continue, for having been a member of the Public Relations Department at the Air Ministry for several years he was naturally familiar with the background of every question he had to answer. At the Food Ministry he must start learning the simplesl! elements, but it will certainly not be long before he handles food questions as confidently as he answered air questions. What gift he possesses for administration has not yet been, but now will be, decisively revealed. The evolution of an Etonian ex-Communist, ex-Mosleyite, into a convinced, reasonably orthodox and extremely able Socialist has been singularly interesting to watch. And there may be a good deal more to watch yet.
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