21 APRIL 1967, Page 31

Sir Oracle

Sir: May I comment on Mr Donald McLachlan's remarks about the Peter Simple column (14 April)?

Dewing the ten years I have been concerned with this column—four years in collaboration with Mr Colin Welch and six years on my own—I have observed no signs of 'nervousness' or 'jealousy' in the editor. I have been given com- plete freedom, within reason of course (I dare say I would not be allowed, for instance, openly to advocate a Communist dictatorship or the legalisation of rape), to express my own opinions —at least as much, I imagine, as the late Cassandra—even when those opinions have been in conflict with the leader columns of the paper.

Mr McLachlan asks when Peter Simple's picture has ever been seen. In fact, his picture—a speaking likeness by Mr Michael ffolkes—appears in the column quite often.

Michael Wharton ('Peter Simple') Michael Wharton ('Peter Simple') The Daily Telegraph, Fleet Street, London EC4