12 JULY 1997, Page 26

Sir: Paul Johnson's hallucinations about the Scott Trust, the Guardian

and its editor have to be diagnosed as an incurable ill- ness. I have discovered over many years that Johnson is as uninterested in verifying facts before he publishes them as he is una- menable to correction when they're wrong. So I risk the charge of straining at a gnat if, in response to another catalogue of lies, I single out one for contradiction. But it is one that can, at least, be addressed without psychiatric assistance.

For the record, neither I nor Alan Rus- bridger took part last week 'in a freebie to Hong Kong'. We went there as journalists, our expenses paid in the normal way by our newspaper. Among others there on the same basis were two former editors of The Spectator, Charles Moore and Dominic Lawson.

Hugo Young The Guardian, London EC1