Unfair to Skeff ?
Sir : I have just got back from a spell abroad where I did not see the SPECTATOR. In my absence, I note, I have been found worthy of criticism by two of your readers.
Your correspondent A. Walker (Letters, 21 June), had already written to me direct in more hostile terms than those used in his somewhat rude letter in your columns. His missive, I naturally consigned to my WPil, unanswered. I would not now even bother to mention him if it were not that it seems you may lose him as a reader through me. The stale tactic he suggests following of dropping you if you do not drop me is of course usual among those who squeal to an editor who may publish what they dislike. " recommend you not to bother overmuch
about Mr Walker, however, for I have regularly had letters direct from other rea- ders approving of my opinions, and stating that the fact that unlike some of your con- temporaries you often publish things from different contributors at variance with your own opinions, is what keeps them loyal to your journal. This certainly applies in my own case.
For one to be boring (A. Walker) and comic (Myra McIntire—Letters, 5 July). at the same time is surely unusual and hardly feasible. So your two letter writers must themselves fight out their differences about me over these hitherto unrecognised attri- butes. In public life today almost every epithet of abuse or praise seems permis- sively applicable. Because of this some of us have developed a thicker skin than one used to wear, and attacks and commendation alike leave one standing where one always has stood—loyal to the principles one be- lieves in. I must admit that to have disturbed even a few mindless Tory rhinoceri among your readers affords me some satisfaction especially if this can be done in a kindly and logical way as I believe is the case.
I am sure Auberon Waugh with whom my relations are, I believe, of the friendliest —despite his effort to fasten on me the ownership of a lilac coloured E-Type Jaguar —would acquit me of ever being maliciously inspired in any political hard-hitting I do. And if he wants to continue the saga so admired by Myra McIntire then who am I to complain? I shall warn him however that the circumstances which first inspired him to write about me are unlikely to recur.
Previous page
