15 JANUARY 2005, Page 22

From Alistair Cooke Sir: It is a pity that Bruce

Anderson’s final flourish did not embody accurately the chilling image of ‘the feathers of death’. An anonymous seaman writing to tell Queen Elizabeth I of his eagerness to lay down his life for her cause produced the splendid words: ‘The wings of man’s life are plumed with the feathers of death.’ Political death rarely warrants such dramatic language, but it might need to be borne in mind not in relation to the Tory leadership, which has enthusiasm for life, but to the extraordinary struggle between Gordon Brown and Tony Blair.

Alistair Cooke

London SW1