25 OCTOBER 1963, Page 19

TORIES AT BLACKPOOL SIR,—Your brief quotation from my article on

the Tory Party Conference gives the impression that the Political Editor of the Sunday Mirror sat in naïve delight as Ministers unfolded an irreproachable social policy. A longer quotation would have shown that I was, in fact, rather acidly interpreting Conservative electoral strategy. I wrote :

It was hoped that a policy with such emphasis on public morality would erase the voters' memories of tales of private vice; that Harold Wilson would have to cease his jibes about the Casino Society and the Bingo-Betting Shop Age created by the Tories: that Sir William Haley, editor of The Times, would no longer want to thunder to Top People about the debasement of values.

Sunday Mirror, EC I

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