31 MARCH 1984, Page 21

Subversive family

Sir: An outsider, watching those gunning for Mark Thatcher, is forced to conclude that they don't want people to make any money, either for themselves or for the country. They would prefer this poor country to lose a good contract. And their political motivation is all too obvious.

A propos of Mr Worsthorne's sympathetic theme ('Mum's the word', 17 March), there is a joke of President Theodore Roosevelt, who had an unruly daughter, and said: 'I can govern the United States, or I can govern Alice, but I can't do both.'

A. L. Rowse

St Austell, Cornwall