24 MAY 1968, Page 29

Sir: The Labour party and the Government would doubtless be

well content if the party were decimated at the next election (your leader of 17 May). That would mean, if decimation means anything at all, a loss of fewer than forty seats.

According to Fowler, 'decimate meant originally to kill every tenth man as a punishment for cowardice or mutiny. Its application is naturally extended to the destruction in any way of a large Proportion of anything reckoned by number.'— Editor, SPECTATOR.