Party lines
Sir: Even though he may think each suitable to run a nationalised industry, for Skinflint to bracket Humphry Berkeley with Desmond Donnelly must seem as politically unpleasant for the former as it would be for me. I say this with some feeling for during the Brigh- ton Pavilion by-election two years ago Donnelly spoke for my chief opponent Julian Amery, as a fer- vent advocate of a substantial Brit- ish military presence in the Gulf and the Far East. Despite Tory ratting on their pledges by follow- ing Labour's policy in one case, and in 'dolling up' a mere token force in the other, so as to look worthwhile, Donnelly, who made a lot of this issue, has just joined the Conservative party. The thin spreading of limited troops and equipment just to half-honour a pre-election undertaking which should never have been made in view of .our big obligations under NATO and the trouble in Ulster, is to undermine and not strengthen British security. But perhaps even this militarily valid consideration passed Donnelly by in his rush to embrace Heath, and in his deter- mination to box the compass of party dogma—first on the extreme left, and now on the extreme right. I know nothing of Donnelly's busi- ness qualifications. But if, as I be- lieve. the successful control of a publicly owned industry requires the sort of dedication to a concept of nationalisation which is ana- thema to the Tory party then Skin- flint's proposal looks silly.
With Humphry Berkeley the position is quite different. Having chaired his first meeting since he became a member of the Labour party, he amply proved to a big qudience that while in no .way
ashamed of his past as a genuinely progressive Conservative, he could no longer stomach the regressive and reactionary outlook which to- day characterises the party he has left. He even opposed the sale of arms to South Africa before this became Labour party policy. Like- wise, there has never been the slightest equivocation over many years in his strong opposition to all forms of racialism. Business-wise he is pretty heavily involved in work bound up with the developing countries of the African continent where- he has many friends and himself has a coloured private secretary. Skinflint's suggestion about him, therefore, is by no means as fanciful as it is made to sound by associating him with Don- nelly, though I would doubt if his present ambition is to do anything more than to serve the cause he has recently espoused, firstly by doing some grassroots work for it as he did in the recent Arundel and Shoreham by-election, and later as a Labour candidate for Parliament to win a seat which will enable his humanitarian and pro- gressive outlook to be given wider expression than is possible at the moment. Guts and courage are characteristic of him.
As for Donnelly if there should ever be a Tory sell out over Rho- desia Heath might find him a niche in whatever Smith-linked adminis- tration might be set up after such a betrayal.
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