126
A. ALVAREZ
settle themselves down as conspiciously and noisily as possible, and
then fire off questions from a handbook the Conservatives had pro–
vided for such occasions.
As
the campaign went on, the candidate
would welcome them jocularly and the rest of the audience occa–
sionally managed some ironic applause on their entry. Mter all,
they were the semi-official representatives of the other side.
The other class of questioner was the compulsive whose reasons
seemed less political than neurotic. The great unknown factor
in
the Election was the floating voter. The polls revealed an extra–
ordinarily high percentage of "Don't Knows" on whom the Con–
servative, Labour and Liberal campaign machines opened up ruth–
lessly. Invariably, the compulsive questioners would announce them–
selves as floating voters, which was a more or less direct demand
to
be
treated with extreme politeness and all the interest accorded to
a very special person. Almost as invariably, they rose simply to show
off, giving little speeches which, only occasionally and with diffi–
culty, did they manage to convert into questions. The candidate's
difficulty was not to answer them but to keep his patience. It was
a depressing business.
Still, he weathered it well, with an excitement and political
intelligence that his Conservative opponent plainly lacked. When,
on polling day, such an unusually large fleet of volunteers arrived
with cars to ferry voters that the constituency mustered an eighty
percent poll, it seemed our man might have a very good chance
of bringing off the miracle. The count was to take place the follow–
ing morning. Everyone was cheerful as we drove back to London
to hear the first results coming in over the BBC. The good spirits
did not last long. By 1 A.M. Gaitskell had conceded the election.
The voices of Macmillan and Hailsham came over the radio in
bleary delight; apparently, they were celebrating heavily. Most of
the marginal constituencies had swung right, two of them to TV
interviewers. One of the best Labour men had lost his seat to an
ex-Naval officer and one-time hero who, he had freely admitted
beforehand, was not interested in politics but had been persuaded
to have a try by his wife. Two TV stars and the spirit of the "Silent
Service": we were in for a distinguished government. At
4-
A.M.
we
