LETTERS Biased rubbish
Sir: Richard West's piece in the Spectator of 8 June (Prom great port to piggery') can only be described as a hymn of hate. It was vitriolic and nasty, the sort of piece one expects to see in the gutter press, not in the Spectator with its long and honourable record as as serious, political journal. The opening paragraph in particular about the Brussels tragedy is worse than anything I have read anywhere else and is quite disgraceful.
It should be remembered that Liverpool football fans have travelled abroad to international matches for 21 years, as well as travelling all over England for even longer, without any serious incidents by Liverpool supporters. Does that not mean anything to West who clearly has such a hatred for Liverpool people that his entire outlook on life is affected? Over the years, West has often shown his hostility to Liverpool and its people, and in the past I have had occasion in the Spectator to challenge his unbalanced diatribes. This time, he has been even more vicious and what he has written must fill with joy all the hearts of those who believe the British people are animals and murderers. West suggests the Liverpool people are disgust- ing, but if anyone is disgusting it is West who clearly has no respect for Liverpool people, who in the overwhelming majority, like most other British people, are decent, good living, honest, kind and compassion- ate. Qualities which seem to be singularly lacking in West.
His piece is full of statements which are either untrue or unbelievably biased. The so-called 'hole-boring dispute', a demarca- tion issue, took place at Cammell Lairds almost 30 years ago and was not respon- sible for the demise of the shipbuilding industry in the Merseyside area. Shipbuild- ing has declined in every part of the United Kingdom, and Cammell Lairds at Birken- head is part of the overall scene. The Liverpool dockers did not decline to accept change any more than dockers elsewhere. Richard West probably lives in London. Has he not noticed that the London docks are practically dead? The decline of Liver- pool docks was partly due to containerisa- tion, but it was mainly brought about because Liverpool was on the wrong side of the country, like Bristol and Glasgow, when Britain entered the EEC. There were many in the country, indeed some in the
Spectator, who pointed out that the North- West in particular would suffer badly in the
event of Britain joining the Common Market. West apparently ignores such fac- tors.
With regard to the youngsters who went to see Mrs Thatcher, like many of their friends on Merseyside, they are desperate for jobs. Is he aware, for example, that quite a number of Merseyside youngsters work in the catering department of the House of Commons, proving to be excel- lent workers? Based upon that and other information I have, I really do wonder where he got the information about those who went to West Germany to work.
As to the so-called 'Piggeries', their real names being The Haigh, Canterbury and Crosby Heights, planning permission was given on the 13 July 1961, when a Con- servative council ran Liverpool. The chair- man of the Housing Committee was Coun- cillor Sanders, and I was not present at the meeting when the decision was taken.
Labour incidentally did not take control of the Liverpool council until 1963. By that time the plans for the blocks were well advanced. Clearly, West has not been a serious reader of the Spectator over the years, otherwise he would have known that I wrote an article for the Spectator many years ago about the way the planners and others had messed Liverpool around.
I have never said that Mrs Thatcher is responsible for Liverpool's conditions, but that the problems of the City have been aggravated by her Government's policies.
I find it very difficult to deal calmly with all the awful things that West says in his piece, such as his tasteless, cruel and sordid attack on John Lennon, and his miserable attitude to Liverpool's Catholic and Angli- can Church leaders. There is no real way of rationally dealing with the biased rubbish that he writes. I suppose one should feel sorry for him for not having a more balanced view. Personally, all I feel now is contempt. How any intelligent human being can write such odious stuff is beyond
me.
Eric Heller
House of Commons, London SW1
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