Declaration of independence
From Mr Simon ICelner Sir: My old friend Stephen Glover's thoughtful piece about the Independent (22 January) contained a number of assertions that I cannot leave unchallenged.
• . and in the blue corner. . biter of ears, raper of women.' His accusation that, under my editorship, the paper has become a slavish follower of the New Labour agenda simply does not stand up. He conveniently selected as evi- dence of this an extract from one leader attacking the Tories. He could just as easily have proved the opposite point had he cho- sen extracts from our leaders on trial by jury, freedom of information, and law and order in which we have been highly critical of the government.
Last week we suggested that Jack Straw should be moved on in the wake of his mis- takes over Mike Tyson and General Pinochet. And, in recent months, we have carried pieces on our comment pages from Michael Portillo, Geoffrey Howe, Michael Ashcroft and Michael Howard; just before Christmas, we gave great prominence to an interview with William Hague. He also upbraids us for failing to attack Labour from the left. Yet we give a weekly plat- form to both Ken Livingstone and Mark Steel, who do precisely that.
Mr Glover states that 'it is no wonder that the Indy has lost its Tory readers — from about 33 per cent in 1987 to 16 per cent at the last election'. Ignoring the fact that Mr Glover was a senior executive at the paper for much of that period and I did not become editor until 1998, his research would also have revealed that, over those ten years, support for the Tories among Guardian readers dropped from 22 to 8 per cent, while even among Telegraph readers it fell from 80 to 57 per cent.
Furthermore, I fail to see what is necessar- ily wrong with supporting the government on the occasions when we believe that what it is doing is right. The Blairite combination of a right-wing economic policy and a more liber- al attitude to social issues is just what under- pinned the Independent's editorial line when it launched in 1986. The paper also urged Neil Kinnock to modernise the labour party in the manner eventually adopted by Blair. I believe it would be disingenuous to shift our position just because Blair has done a lot of what we wanted. But, equally, a studied analysis of our leaders would reveal an inde- pendence of thought that always has charac- terised the Independent, and always will.
Simon Kelner
Editor of the Independent, London
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