Word: massingham
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...session and barely (by a vote of 113 to 104) passed a resolution supporting the inclusion of Germany in Western defenses (TIME, March 8), the respected weekly London Observer (circ. 475,609) reported the meeting fully. The Observer's veteran parliamentary reporter and novelist (Fear No Evil), Hugh Massingham, even included such details as Nye Bevan's letting "off a few spirited quips about the stupidity and dishonesty of some of his colleagues," and Clement Attlee's announcing "through pipe puffs that 'I'm told this [vote] will split the party...
...Massingham's story and others that followed were too much for Deputy Labor Party Leader Herbert Morrison. Bitterly, he scolded the Observer and party members who "retail gossip about confidential proceedings." The Observer quickly replied that "it is at party meetings that policy questions are thrashed out. Should the public be denied all information about these debates, which are clearly of public interest? There is a tendency nowadays to limit the activities of reporters ... to receiving official handouts." The Observer was immediately joined by the Times. "It is no function of newspapers," thundered the Times, "to keep politicians...