21 JUNE 1946, Page 4

Listening to Mr. John Strachey's broadcast on the food situation

on Sunday night I caught at one point a singularly familiar echo. I think it was in regard to the despatch of food to starving Europe that Mr. Strachey observed that he was " confident of the support of all right-thinking men and women." As soon as the Food Minister had finished I took from my shelf A. G. Gardiner's " Pillars of Society " and turned to the study of the Minister's father, St. Loe Strachey. My memory had not failed me. There the passage was : " ' Every right-thinking man' is the note of The Spectator—and when one speaks of The Spectator one speaks of Mr. Strachey, for his spirit breathes in every line of that organ. He appeals to ' the right-thinking' man with a firm assurance that the right-thinking man is with him. Indeed he must be with him ; how else can he be ' right-thinking ' ? " That was thirty years ago. The Spectator, under other guidance today, makes no claim to be better than it should be. Confidence in the approval of all right thinking men is, as Mr. John Strachey has so interestingly demonstrated, a family, rather than an official,, trait.

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