Wake up!
Sir: Wake up 'Spectator'! The danger lights are flashing and the fight is on, but-The Spectator is
becoming respectable and even boring. No longer does one have to hide one's weekly copy under the table at Young Conservative Committee Meetings, no longer is it considered a vile aberration to admit to reading it. In its present state, the idea of The Spectator taking up a "cause" of any sort is swiftly diminishing, let alone one, such as the EEC, when it found itself, ranged against the whole power of the press, media and establishment.
The editorials, once the lifeblood of the paper, are now dull and turgid: compromising rather than incisive. In November 1974, the death penalty for terrorists was supported but a year later, it was condemned. Peregrinations has gone, so has 'Tom Puzzle,' both splendidly irreverent. 'Society Today,' with its great virtue of continuity, is also dropped. Without Patrick Cosgrave, one would almost despair.
Bring back the old style: life would be dull without The Spectator.
Charles Pender Magdalene College, Cambridge
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