CMQ 50 etc.,
Sir: I must say that what impresses me most about the saga of CMQ 50 (Spectator's Notebook, December 11) is the sheer buckpassing effrontery of Conservative Central Office and/or Research Department in setting up a question and answer service and then expecting someone else, in this case government departments, to do all the work for them. Then, when they get the answer wrong. they turn round and blame the partments " dealing with the subject of the question they have failed to answer.
Of course it is true that the multiplicity of government de ments makes it difficult, at times, to locate the right person to answer a particular question. But this is a difficulty which can equally apply, in the case of complex subject-matter, within a department, and I would have thought that it was the job of a research department, particularly one with so high a reputation as that attached to the Conservative party, to be at least skilled in circumventing these difficulties. For they can be circumvented, in my opinion, by doing a thorough survey of relevant published literature. An answer will then frequently become apparent without the necessity of ' buckpassing ' to govenment departments which are in most cases heavily overloaded. In brief, why cannot the Conservative Research Department, like private industry, 'stand on its own two feet' instead of constantly looking to government to do everything for it? G. Chowdharay-Best 174 Clay Hill Road, Basildon, Essex
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