16 SEPTEMBER 1972, Page 22

On the slide

Sir: PC (Notebook, September 2) takes the Times to task for its " steadily-declining " level of accuracy in reporting. It began to slide downhill, he says, "when advertisements were put on the front page." That is either a decline lasting nearly 200 years, or The Spectator is on the same slide. And Patrick Cosgrove (the very same PC?) has to apologise in the same issue for two errors in titles in a review of a book by the Editor of the Times Business News.

Self-confessed crusty reactionaries should not give too many hostages to fortune in criticising inaccuracies. Even they can make mistakes.

Colin Webb Home News Editor, The Times, Printing House Square, London EC4