25 OCTOBER 1946, Page 15

THE TORY PROGRAMME SIR,—According to Dod's Parliamentary Companion, fourteen Labour

candidates who had served in the R.A.F. during the late war were elected to Parliament for the first time at the General Election in 1945. Of these men, all but four, one of whom was a regular officer, had been members of the Labour Party for over twelve years. Mr. Rawlinson's statement in your issue of October nth that " Dozens of young men, mostly officers from the R.A.F., offered themselves to the Conservative Party at the last Election but were turned down because they had not been to the right school," and that they then " stood for Labour—and got in "—woulel appear to be inaccurate.—Yours faithfully,