Winter of the World

Working-class voters were strongly Labour. A lot of people told Lloyd that Attlee and Bevin had done a good job during the war. The waverers were mostly middle-class. When people said that Churchill had won the war, Lloyd quoted Attlee’s gentle put-down: ‘It wasn’t a one-man government, and it wasn’t a one-man war.’

Churchill had described Attlee as a modest man with much to be modest about. Attlee’s wit was less brutal, and for that reason more effective; at least, Lloyd thought so.

A couple of constituents mentioned the sitting MP for Hoxton, a Liberal, and said they would vote for him because he had helped them solve some problem. Members of Parliament were often called upon by constituents who felt they were being treated unjustly by the government, an employer or a neighbour. It was time-consuming work but it won votes.

Overall, Lloyd could not tell which way public opinion was leaning.

Only one constituent mentioned Daisy. The man came to the door with his mouth full of food. Lloyd said: ‘Good evening, Mr Perkinson, I understand you wanted to ask me something.’

‘Your fiancée was a Fascist,’ the man said, chewing.

Lloyd guessed he had been reading the Daily Mail, which had run a spiteful story about Lloyd and Daisy under the headline THE SOCIALIST AND THE VISCOUNTESS.

Lloyd nodded. ‘She was briefly fooled by Fascism, like many others.’

‘How can a socialist marry a Fascist?’

Lloyd looked around, spotted Daisy, and beckoned her. ‘Mr Perkinson here is asking me about my fiancée being an ex-Fascist.’

‘Pleased to meet you, Mr Perkinson.’ Daisy shook the man’s hand. ‘I quite understand your concern. My first husband was a Fascist in the thirties, and I supported him.’

Perkinson nodded. He probably believed a wife should take her views from her husband.

‘How foolish we were,’ Daisy went on. ‘But, when the war came, my first husband joined the RAF and fought against the Nazis as bravely as anyone.’

‘Is that a fact?’

‘Last year he was flying a Typhoon over France, strafing a German troop train, when he was shot down and killed. So I’m a war widow.’

Perkinson swallowed his food. ‘I’m sorry to hear that, of course.’

But Daisy had not finished. ‘For myself, I lived in London throughout the war. I drove an ambulance all through the Blitz.’

‘Very brave of you, I’m sure.’

‘Well, I just hope you think that my late husband and I both paid our dues.’

‘I don’t know about that,’ Perkinson said sulkily.

‘We won’t take up any more of your time,’ said Lloyd. ‘Thank you for explaining your views to me. Good evening.’

As they walked away, Daisy said: ‘I don’t think we won him round.’

‘You never do,’ Lloyd said. ‘But he’s seen both sides of the story now, which might make him a bit less vociferous about it, later this evening, when he talks about us in the pub.’

‘Hmm.’

Lloyd sensed he had failed to reassure Daisy.

Canvassing finished early, for tonight the first of the radio election broadcasts would be aired on the BBC, and all party workers would be listening. Churchill had the privilege of making the first one.

On the bus home, Daisy said: ‘I’m worried. I’m an election liability to you.’

‘No candidate is perfect,’ Lloyd said. ‘It’s how you deal with your weaknesses that matters.’

‘I don’t want to be your weakness. Perhaps I should stay out of the way.’

‘On the contrary, I want everyone to know all about you from the start. If you are a liability, I will get out of politics.’

‘No, no! I’d hate to think I made you give up your ambitions.’

‘It won’t come to that,’ he said, but once again he could see that he had not succeeded in assuaging her anxiety.

Back in Nutley Street, the Leckwith family sat around the radio in the kitchen. Daisy held Lloyd’s hand. ‘I came here a lot while you were away,’ she said. ‘We used to listen to swing music and talk about you.’

The thought made Lloyd feel very lucky.

Churchill came on. The familiar rasp was stirring. For five grim years that voice had given people strength and hope and courage. Lloyd felt despairing: even he was tempted to vote for this man.

‘My friends,’ the Prime Minister said. ‘I must tell you that a socialist policy is abhorrent to the British ideas of freedom.’

Well, that was routine knockabout stuff. All new ideas were condemned as foreign imports. But what would Churchill offer people? Labour had a plan, but what did the Conservatives propose?

‘Socialism is inseparably interwoven with totalitarianism,’ Churchill said.

Lloyd’s mother, Ethel, said: ‘Surely he’s not going to pretend we’re like the Nazis?’

‘I think he is, though,’ Bernie said. ‘He’ll say we’ve defeated the enemy abroad, now we must defeat the enemy in our midst. Standard conservative tactic.’

‘People won’t believe that,’ Ethel said.

Lloyd said: ‘Hush!’

Churchill said: ‘A socialist state, once thoroughly completed in all its details and its aspects, could not afford to suffer opposition.’

‘This is outrageous,’ said Ethel.