Margesson had been Secretary of State for War until February 1942 when Winston Churchill sacked him following the fall of Singapore.
Although the General Election had not taken place because of the war, he had remained active for the Labour party in Rugby and was still officially their candidate.
[4] In accordance with the terms of the wartime electoral truce, Millett was not put forward by the Rugby Labour party.
Brown did however have a political power-base, having been General Secretary of the Civil Service Clerical Association since he founded the organisation in 1921.
When nominations closed, it was to reveal a two horse race, the Conservative local man, Holbrook, against the Independent outsider, Brown.
[6] Brown chose as his election agent, another outsider in Reg Hipwell[7] who was a Services Journalist and had himself fought the 1941 Hampstead by-election as an Independent candidate.
Breaking through the contradictions in production, the Civil Service, politics and propaganda, which hinder the war effort.
[8] At the start of the campaign Holbrook was sharply criticised by a Magistrate in open Court for being very unhelpful to the police, who had been trying to enquire into thefts from the Ordnance Depot of which he was the Officer-in-Charge.
The National Council of Labour passed a resolution condemning Brown as a disruptive individual, not a fit and proper person to represent the working classes.
This upset the local Communist party, who had been instructed by their headquarters in London to call on their supporters to vote for Holbrook as the best way of getting it.
The retired Rugby Conservative MP, David Margesson warned voters that Adolf Hitler would gloat if Brown got in.
In 1945, free from the restrictions of the electoral truce, the Labour party fielded a candidate against Brown and finished last.