26 SEPTEMBER 1970, Page 16

LETTERS

From Douglas Houghton MP, Lynn Converse, Simon Digby, Dr K. Subrah, manian. Nicholas Davenport, Rev Guy Bowden, T. J. B. Heelas, M. Yaren,

Harold Wilson's lost battle

Sir: May I intervene quite briefly to corn: meat on two statements in Woodrow Wyatt's article (September 12).

I thank him for his friendly references to me, though I must disagree with his be- lief that I had 'a blind spot' on industrial relations and that the advice I gave to the Government about the likely fate of the Bill was coloured by my own opposition to it.

This was not so. My duty was to tell the Government that there was enough deter, mined opposition within the Parliamentary Labour Party to wreck this Bill. It was already June, far too late in the session to start on a bitterly controversial measure. While I agree that the Bill would have got a Second Reading if the Conservative op- position abstained, there was a packet of procedural trouble to follow.

For the possibilities of successful ob- struction Woodrow Wyatt has only to recall what happened on the Bill to reform the House of Lords.