21 SEPTEMBER 1974, Page 4

Tory policies

Sir: As a committed Conservative, it disturbs me considerably that my party seem quite unable to learn from past history; something that has always been a commendable feature of its make-up. With a general election imminent, it insists on raising the tattered and dishonoured battle flag of a prices and incomes policy, ultimately backed by the force of the law.

What has the Conservative Research Department been doing with its time for the past six months? Have our researchers not learnt the fundamental economic lesson that to finance profligate government spending by continually increasing the fiduciary issue is inflationary folly of the highest order? It has taken the courage and wisdom of the Shadow Home Secretary to explain to the country and to his stubborn colleagues that herein lies the source of our troubles, and the substance of a solution to put before the electorate.

The Socialists' transparent and flimsy 'social contract,' "Not worth the paper it is not written on," as Dr Rhodes Boyson put it, is simply a dangerous extension of this inflationary folly.

Churchill boldly laid waste to the heresy of deficit spending seventy-three years ago. "Expenditure always is popular," he said. "The only unpopular part about it is the raising of the money to pay the expenditure." He also said that 'truth is incontrovertible. Panic may resent it; ignorance may deride it, malice may distort it, but there it is."

If the 'morality of politics' is to survive, the duty of the politician must be to tell the truth about inflation, incontrovertible as it is. Only then does the Conservative Party stand a chance goof verenimmaiennitng 'the natural party of

David McDonough 24 Edensor Road, Eastbourne, Sussex