LETTERS Back to normal?
Sir: Your normally astute political com- mentators all appeared to part company with their common sense in last week's issue. Your own editorial laid the blame for Mrs Thatcher's downfall squarely at Mr Heseltine's door, as though Tory backben- chers had not encouraged him to stand and then voted for him. The Another Voice of Charles Moore, interviewing Michael Heseltine and the Prime Minister, con- trasted Mrs Thatcher's unstoppable di- atribe with Mr Hese!tine's clarity of re- sponse and concluded that the former was infinitely preferable because it was 'in- teresting'.
Noel Malcolm excoriated Tory MPs for not broadcasting how they were going to vote in a secret ballot, and for having the temerity to think that the opinion polls, which all showed a Tory election victory as alone possible under Mr Heseltine, had some relevance. And Paul Johnson, splut- tering at the Independent's anti- Thatcherite stance, parlayed it into a de- mand that Andreas Whittam-Smith either forfeit the editorship or give up his position as chief executive.
Now that the leadership campaign is over, may your readers be assured that this collective abandonment of logic is at an end?
Christopher Hudson
64 Westbournc Park Road, London W2
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