A bonfire of Wilsonism
Sir: You should get your geography and your facts right. At the risk of offending many Welshmen—and, who knows, Mr Powell may not be among them—your leader (10 January) confuses Cardiff with Swansea. Mr Wilson made major speeches in Swansea both in 1964 and last Saturday, neither in Cardiff. In the latter case he spoke as Prime Minister and leader of a united Cabinet. On neither occasion was he 'the one man band' you imPly.
For you to call the Government's now widely acclaimed economic success 'a costly • disaster' in winding up your jeremiad about what you call Wilsonism', is to reverse the accurate reasoning you display in one, and
one only, of its eight paragraphs. There, you rightly characterise the Tory attitude to the dramatic improvement in the balance of payments as 'politically inept, an un- warranted slur on the statisticians who pre- pare the figures, and plain nonsense.' Per- haps as time goes on you may find yourself having to condemn other aspects of the pre- sent Opposition's irresponsibility in similar terms. Till then, the inconsistency you often show in expressing your opinions makes the SPECTATOR good fun to read. So much is this the case with me, that I am, for the first time. taking out a subscription. Please assure your many able and distinguished con- tributors however that they have played some part in this decision.
Mr Skeflington-Lodge is right about Swan- sea. Apologies to our Welsh readers.— Editor. SPECTATOR.
Previous page
