18 NOVEMBER 1972, Page 36

Appeasing the left

From Miss M. M. Hill Sir: 'Another Spectator' (Notebook, November 11) may be too young to have personal knowledge of the 'forties but appears to have been careless over his sources. In his paragraph 'Appeasing the Left' he states that when the late Mr D. N. Pritt "spoke most vigorously in the Commons against Mosley's release" he was made to look "a bit of a fool" when "other speakers pointed out that on Mosley's original imprisonment in 1940, during the period of Fascist-Communist alliance, Pritt had warmly objected."

As Mr Pritt's secretary throughout the war years, I state categorically that he never objected to Mosley's detention. He warmly objected to the detention under regulation 18B of many antiFascists, including many Germans, in 1940 and devoted himself unsparingly to their cause and their release. Whatever some history books may say about that period, there was for Mr Pritt never for one moment a "FascistCommunist alliance."

I should be interested to have the Hansard reference to the occasion on which "other speakers" pointed out that he had ever objected to Mosley's detention.

M. M. Hill 3 Middle Temple Lane, EC4