COMMENT Available to Purchase

Industrial experience is as important to politicians as to teachers in technical colleges; and increasingly important as the government is compelled to intervene in industrial matters, especially wage negotiations. One of Mr Wilson's many mistakes is to fail to recognize this. Twenty years on the parliamentary back‐benches is a poor training for the assumption of major administrative responsibilities and for making far‐reaching economic decisions. We are rightly proud in this country that there is little corruption and political patronage and that politics is therefore a poor man's game; but the price we pay for this is the innocence of many of our professional politicians when they are confronted by the harsh realities of the market place. This penalizes the Labour Party most of all. The Conservative Party has an amateur tradition and encourages its back‐bench MPs to continue to pursue their outside business and professional interests; this often prepares them reasonably well for ministerial responsibility. But the Labour Party has a professional tradition and has comparatively few business men. Its main strength in industrial experience is amongst its trade unionists and Mr Wilson has made notably less use of this than did Mr Attlee; his cabinet sorely lacks an Ernest Bevin.