i l,2 find it increasingly difficult to avI ct anY degree of
rationality in 41 Holbrook's writings. He seems j00,111,Mand space in the weeklies 1 'llaproportional to the support he er the case he presents. latest article does not help. It bins, of course, his usual autoalsraPhy confirming once more or ' like L d Longford, undue t ie'"Y Is not one of his faults. He is al 44 honest enough to use the acoverWord 'censorship' now, but has • et explained by whom this is to i_lhinn,,,,,e.and on what section of the Ren,""ItY it is to be imposed. We all i"-and indeed the Law insists — ' children must be protected from sthadult influences, and the privacy sio,,ers Preserved, but does he want ,V Pt' there? I seem to recall from the flulbp,r,°,gramme 'they' (Hood and ti.taK) considered the censorship of lltlis'a scenes in a film because 'the I nee' (the rest of us over the age irst k een) laughed at the wrong ave .,„a,d we not laughed, would we '
I4,"'ll been allowed to see it? 1 sub
e■bro,„ sequent letter to the Listener his T.1 ‘'. Complained bitterly that part kelelscourse had been cut off by a lltrn-i ,and self-elected censor in the is.Koom at Broadcasting House. .11 t a stait, at least, in that he may 41 get an inkling of the massive
indignation people like me feel at being censored by people like David Holbrook.
He takes this further in his recent article where various 'left-wing' organisations are accused of, at the same time, being too permissive and trying to suppress certain opinions. This attitude reached its apotheosis in a recent letter to The New Statesman where he made the mind-bending charge that certain unprincipled people were "trying to suppress the desire for censorship." This I assume to be a new and bizarre version of "Quis custodet etc?"
1 note, by the way, that Holbrook is offered, and takes immediate advantage of, space in these journals to publish all the things he believes are being suppressed. Would he grant a similar liberty to the victims of his censorship or is this, to paraphrase a Communist joke, the difference between censorship from above and censorship from below? On this point, can we hear his views on recent events in the 'left-wing' USSR where the KGB Holbrooks have earned the gratitude of the nation for preventing the corruption of their society by the 'poisonous filth' (which, NB, they are not allowed to read) written by Solzhenitsyn.
Finally, can he answer the fundamental questions? In common with his associates he appears to have an encyclopaedic knowledge and experience of pornography. If this distresses him so much, why does he pursue it so earnestly? If, as he believes, it will corrupt us, why does it not corrupt him? If, like the Pharisee, he is not as other men, can he advise what Lord Longford quaintly termed 'the more vulnerable of a society' on this difference, and how we too can become immaculate exceptions.
R. W. Unwin 73 Canfield Gardens, London NW6
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