Mosley's hard centre
Sir: The accuracy of Ronald W. Jones's observations in his article 'I was a Blackshirt menace' (6 August) are easily tested: he claims to have been a member of Sir Oswald Mosley's British Union move- ment, and to have spoken at public meetings 'from the published policy of the movement.' Yet he was all the time under the impression that he belonged to 'the ex- treme right-wing.'
Mosley's first election address — as a Conservative candidate in Harrow in 1918 — contained the expression 'socialistic im- perialism' and throughout his subsequent career, in the Labour Party, New Party, the pre-war British Union and the post-war Union Movement, he continued to ad- vocate national socialism as opposed to the international version. He was never a man of the right, nor of the left, but of the hard centre of British politics.
If I thought Mr Jones were responsive to a little serious political education I would be happy to send him some of Mosley's writings, or even a copy of my own humble autobiography Action Replay, which records very different recollections of British Union in the Thirties from the pro- ducts of his vivid journalistic imagination.
Jeffrey Hamm
Action Society, 76a Rochester Row, London SWI
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