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Volume 10 1951~1957

Doc No.
Date
Subject

No. 344 NAI DFA/5/313/31/A

Extract from a confidential report from Frederick H. Boland
to Seán Murphy (Dublin)
'The British Election Campaign'
(Confidential)

London, 23 May 1955

  1. In spite of what has been said in the papers, the party TV broadcasts seemed to me singularly uninspired and unconvincing. I doubt whether they can have had very much influence on those who watched them, one way or the other. It seemed to me that the least successful of all those who appeared was the Prime Minister, Sir Anthony Eden. His superlatively polite, almost simpering manner must have given many of those who saw him a damaging impression of weakness, insincerity and dilettantism. Many Conservatives seem to have gathered the same impression and the remark is heard with increasing frequency here that ‘Anthony has everything except the qualities of a political leader’.
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