Palmer's gang Sir : Mr Tony Palmer's remarks last week
(12 December) concern- ing the debate on 'The State of Britain Today', which took place on the radio programme Speakea‘r, are, to use his own word, fright- ening. He starts off by ridiculing the views on immigration, foreign aid and corporal punishment put forward by some of the more right- of-centre participants in the debate, and then says that he could not believe that twenty-fix e years of post-war education had produced 'such a gang of un- thinking hooligans'; presumably Mr Palmer would be absolutely delighted if this education had pro-
duced thousands of meaningless slogan-shouting leftist sheep.
The adjective 'unthinking' is really absurd; despite what he says later on in the article, the education (political and otherwise) provided by radio and television is basically left-wing, consisting not of delib- erate political indoctrination, but of intentional inflexions of the voice and the use of misleading nouns (for instance, a man is a 'terrorist' if he fights against a left-wing regime, and a 'freedom fighter' if he fights against a right- wing regime). In view of this fact. one can hardly call these people 'unthinking': unlike their leftist contemporaries, they have had to think out their position for them- selves, instead of having it pumped into them at school and through the mass media. But what is fright- ening is the fact that Mr Palmer expects this education to have pro- duced these people; we can only be thankful that it has not, for if it had, the situation portrayed in George Orwell's 1984 would seem horribly near.
If Mr Palmer continues to treat his political opponents the way he does, he can hardly expect not to get the 'obscene abuse' about which he complains, but which he so richly deserves.
Peter Newsome 10 Dale Fields, Delph, Oldham, Lancashire
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