18 APRIL 1958, Page 6

IN OUR correspondence columns Mr. Randolph Churchill makes clear that

his plan for an anti- Socialist front owed nothing to that of Mr. Martell, whose pamphlet he had not read. I am sorry. The plans were so similar I was deceived into thinking they had a similar origin. Mr. Churchill says that my assertion that the Liberals 'have no chance at all of winning marginal Labour seats' requires argument to support it. I should have thought it was obvious. Although the swing has been much smaller than might be ex- pected, Labour has at the moment slightly im- proved its position since 1955. In other words, it will be more difficult today for an anti- Socialist candidate to win a Socialist marginal seat than it would have been in 1955. Does Mr. Churchill think that even in 1955 an anti- Socialist alliance would have won any of Labour's marginal seats? Mr. Churchill says that if a Liberal candidate 'could collect half the Tory vote in a Socialist marginal seat he would be home and dry.' But if the Liberal got half the Tory vote he would need something over a quarter of the Socialist vote to win; and if, as Mr. Churchill suggests, he concentrated his criticism on Social- ism rather than upon Conservatism, this seems to me unlikely.