 Finding himself dropped by the "News Chronicle" after it supplanted the "Daily News" in the summer of 1930, he travelled with the then leader of the Liberal Party in the House of Lords, William Lygon, 7th Earl Beauchamp, to Australia, and thence, alone, to India.The result was his book about Mahatma Gandhi, "Naked Fakir" (1931; published as "Naked Faquir" in the United States in 1932).He stood unsuccessfully for Parliament as a Liberal at Rugby in the 1929 general election (losing, after the campaign was interrupted and polling delayed for six weeks by the Labour candidate's death, to the incumbent Conservative, the future Chief Whip David Margesson); but, following the positive reception afforded "Naked Fakir", he was adopted as Liberal candidate for Bristol North – a seat once held by the distinguished Liberal Cabinet Minister Augustine Birrell – at the 1931 general election.