17 NOVEMBER 1979, Page 20

Social error

Sir: May I gently chide my friend Alan Watkins for a social error uncharacteristic of this man of our times (27 October). Soirees (as he calls what are usually known as dinner parties) specialising in political conversation have for some years past ceased to be the preserve of London's Tory hostesses. The dinners to which Tony 'dispatched his wife to pick up the gossip' were given by Labour Party supporters.

Susan Crosland Old Mill, Adderbury, Banbury, Oxfordshire