27 NOVEMBER 1971, Page 37

Confessions wanted

From Professor Antony Flew Sir: It would be a pity if interest in Mr R. H. S. — Double — Crossman's bitter attack on his former colleague Mr Jenkins took all attention away from another much more significant item in the same issue of the New Statesman.

Reviewing a biography of Lord Lindsay of Birker, Lord Balogh writes of "the success of the Army Education Scheme which contributed so much, perhaps the decisive marginal push, to Labour's victory in 1945. But then its practical organisation was in George Wigg's ruthlessly loyal hands — Lindsay's unexpected choice — and he knew how to fashion a political instrument."

How true, of course. But would it not be gracious at long last to apologise to those Conservative backbenchers who said this about ABCA at the time; and were much condemned by all right-thinking leftists for their protests? And how long have we now to wait for a similar confession — perhaps from Lord Wedgbenn of Mintech — of Labour's debt to the men who launched That Was the Week that Was to win the 1964 election, and to those others at the BBC who did their bit to keep the 1970 Conservative majority down to its present unsafe level?

More topically still, when shall we hear the tributes to those men of the media now doing such devoted work for the IRA?

Antony Flew 77 Sandbach Road North, Alsager. by Stoke-on-Trent