Vandal MP
Sir: In your issue for 6 June, I concluded my paragraph on my voting intentions by stating that, 'if I lived in Cambridge it would be a duty to vote Conservative, but I don't so I won't vote at all'. Although the election is now over, I wish to withdraw this flippant remark as I have since learned that, in his manifesto, the sitting Conserva- tive Member for Cambridge listed 'secur- ing Ministerial approval for the new library in Clare College' as one of his past achieve- ments.
I find it astonishing and repellent that Mr Robert Rhodes James should take pride in having abetted one of the worst of the many architectural crimes committed in the University city in recent years. Building a library in the Memorial Court of Clare blocked the vista to the University Library, so spoiling Sir Giles Scott's con- ception, which was unique in modern British architecture. It was also unneces- sary, as even the offending architects admitted, and was only achieved in spite of strong opposition both within and without Cambridge because Mr Tom King, in his mercifully brief, inglorious reign as Secret- ary of State for the Environment, chose not to call the case in for public inquiry as he ought to have done.
LETTERS
I now think that even Shirley Williams would have been preferable to a smug, self-confessed vandal.
Gavin Stamp
1 Saint Chad's Street, London WC1
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