18 MARCH 2000, Page 30

Rejecting the ermine

From Mr John Papworth Sir: When Peter Oborne (`Chamber of hor- rors', 11 March) suggests that Michael Foot's refusal of a peerage is a possibly unique exception to the rule of the abandon- ment of socialist principle when a peerage is on offer, he reminds me of R.H. Tawney's riposte in 1924 when Ramsay MacDonald offered him an earldom. He responded, 'My dear MacDonald, even a mad dog does not tie a tin can to its own tail.'

John Papworth

Editor, Fourth World Review, Purton, Wiltshire