11 FEBRUARY 1989, Page 33

Mr Johnson contends that the existence of a magazine like

Brain Damage 'suggests that the Cassandras were right when they predicted in the 1960s that scrapping the !tiles would end not in enhanced liberty but In moral chaos'. However, he seems reluc- tant to state what those rules are, or were.

The suspect's right to silence perhaps? Detention without trial? The 'massaging' of statistics vis-à-vis the actual condition of the Health Service and the actual number of the unemployed? Draconian immigra- tion laws? And so on and so on.

What I'm saying is that black humour (in the light of the current powerlessness of any organised opposition to these policies) is at least one form of response. Black humour for black times?

Bill Hampton

Editor, Brain Damage, PO Box 312, Witham, Essex