Integrity
Sir: I take exception to Political Commentary's patronising denigration of George Ward (10 September). With collectivism's ever-increasing grip on the throat of this country, the courage and tenacity of Mr Ward in pitting his small firm, to the point of bankruptcy, against the monolothic unions and their mindless interference (including their recent threat to cut off mains services to Grunwick's) is to be applauded. And he is entitled to see it in a historical context.
If we are marked to die, we are enow To do our country loss; and if to live The fewer men the greater share of honour, as Henry V said when outnumbered five to one by the French before Agincourt.
A propos, the closed shop issue is habitually treated in a political context, but as Walter Raleigh (twentieth not sixteenth century) pointed out, 'Man loses not a little of himself in crowds and some degradation there must be when the one adapts to the many.'
It is of course this principle of integrity which is at stake. I would hope to have seen the Spectator uphold that.
(Mrs) Caroline Ackroyd Nuffield, Weald, Sevenoaks
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