11 APRIL 1987, Page 22

Weekend thesis

Sir: My friend Alan Waticins's memory is at fault (Diary, 28 March). Television programmes cannot afford to waste time, any more than columnists can: the attempt to induce him to say the opposite of what he believed would indeed have been a fatuous waste of time, and Weekend World did not seek to do so; we merely tried to persuade him to make his comments in a form readily intelligible to a lay audience.

The thesis of the Weekend World pro- gramme in question was that the Bishops Stortford conference of early 1982 had not solved Labour's problems: in retrospect, that seems a somewhat uncontroversial conclusion, and I would be greatly sur- prised if Alan Watkins dissented from it.

Bruce Anderson

Sunday Telegraph, Fleet Street, London EC4