In 1940 the cockney, the inevitable cockney, used to remark, for the edification of American correspondents: "Cor, we're alone. What of it, guv?" Now, I have always regarded this not as a piece of patriotic rhetoric but as a natural response to events by a brave people. Shakespeare, of course, said it better. Come the three corners of the world in arms, And we shall shock them. Nought shall make us rue, If England to itself do rest but true. The important word is "itself." If there comes a time of great outside pressure when alliances and confederations are in danger, Americans will be well advised to remember that word. The decision to make the hydrogen bomb, a project involving the expenditure of great sums that Britain could ill afford, again was a bipartisan matter. The Conservative government proposed it. The Labor opposition (with Mr. Bevan dissenting in a burst of Welsh oratory) agreed. There have been recurrent criticisms of how the work was being done, of the cost, of the necessity for testing the weapon, and of the arrangements for the tests. But there has been very little criticism of the bomb's manufacture from the leaders of the Labor Party--excepting always Mr. Bevan. Bipartisanship is assisted by consultation on issues of major national importance between the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition. But the achievement of bipartisan policies owes much more to a general understanding in both parties in the House of Commons of the country's present position. Socialist reform and experimentation in the years between 1945 and 1951 aroused Conservative fears as fierce as Labor Party hopes. The enmity aroused in the largely Conservative middle class by the Labor governments of those years certainly has not disappeared. But much of it has been re-directed against the moderate policies of the Conservative government, which has long claimed the allegiance of the middle class. The leaders of the two great parties--Harold Macmillan, Lord Salisbury, and R.A. Butler for the Conservatives, and Hugh Gaitskell, Harold Wilson, Jim Griffiths for Labor--are moderates. On the periphery of each party stand the radicals advocating extreme measures at home and abroad. Should Britain's economic and international troubles persist, the moderate approach to their solution may not satisfy either the Conservative or Socialist voters. British politics in May of 1955 continued one of those rhythmic changes of direction which feature political life in every democratic nation. The Conservatives won a smashing victory in the general election and became the first party in ninety years to be returned to office with an increased majority. The victory gave the Tory government a majority of 61 in the House of Commons. But this majority is not an exact reflection of the way the electorate voted. The Conservatives and their supporters got 13,311,938 votes and Labor won 12,405,146. The Liberals got 722,395 and the Communists 33,144.