Incomes policy
Sir: In your editorial of March 23 you
say: . . . the election result constituted a decisive rejection of Phase Three, and the policy of standing up to wage claims." I beg to differ. Rather the election result in fact constituted a decisive victory for a prices and incomes policy. One merely has to examine the results: The Conservative Party achieved 11,963,207 votes and advocated a statutory policy on prices and incomes until such time as a voluntary one could be reached, as Mr Carr reiterated in the House of Com mons on Monday March 18. The Liberals achieved 6,063,470 votes and they advocated a permanent statutory policy. The Labour Party, which at the election was advocating no statutory controls on pay, achieved 11,659,726 votes, 37 per cent of the total votes cast, whereas the Conservatives and Liberals combined, and advocating some sort of pay policy, be it permanent or temporary, achieved 571 per cent. Whatever the election result did constitute, and we all have our different views, I do not think that The Spectator can claim that the result was a decisive rejection of "the policy, of standing up to wage claims."
I have previously written to The Spectator disagreeing with its attitude towards Mr Heath, but I can disregard that when 1 read such sensible comment on Mr Nixon and Dr Kissinger whose recent ridiculous antics make me wonder if they both think that Europe belongs to America and not to Surrey
Michael parker Pike House, Gong ,
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