instruct their men that the colour bar is not a custom in this country". He continued to write the Hickey column, and used his parliamentary salary to fund a constituency office in Maldon. In January 1943, while in Edinburgh to campaign in another by-election, Driberg was caught by a policeman while in the act of fellating a Norwegian sailor. In his own account of the incident Driberg records that he escaped arrest by identifying himself as "William Hickey" and as a member of parliament. These disclosures evidently overawed the constable, who took no further action; indeed, Driberg says, the incident began a chaste friendship with the officer that endured for more than ten years. Meanwhile, Beaverbrook had become disenchanted with him, and did not intervene when Arthur Christiansen, the Express editor, sacked the columnist in June 1943 over a story detrimental to a government minister, Andrew Rae Duncan. Driberg subsequently signed up with Reynolds News, a Sunday newspaper owned by the Co-operative Group, and undertook a regular parliamentary column for the New Statesman. He also contributed to a weekly BBC European Service broadcast until, in October 1943, he was banned after government pressure. He reported the post-D-Day allied advances in France and Belgium as a war correspondent for Reynolds News, and as a member of a parliamentary delegation witnessed the aftermath of the liberation of Buchenwald concentration camp in April 1945. Labour Member, 1945–55 In the general election of July 1945 Driberg increased his majority at Maldon to 7,727. Before the election he had joined the Labour Party and had been welcomed by the local constituency party as their candidate. He was thus one of the 393 Labour MPs in the landslide election victory that replaced Churchill as prime minister with Clement Attlee. Within a few days of his victory, Driberg left for the Far East, to report on the conditions of the allied troops in Burma. The Supreme Allied Commander, Lord Mountbatten, knew him slightly and made him an unofficial temporary special adviser. In this role he met the Patriotic Burmese Forces leader, Aung San, who impressed him as honest and incorruptible, "unlike some of the older Burmese politicians". Later, he visited Saigon and offered to mediate with Ho Chi Minh, who had recently declared an independent Vietnam state. Driberg later maintained that, had his offer been taken up, he might have prevented the Vietnam War. Because of his