Disavowal
Sir: I was puzzled by Mr Gale's suggestion (Spectator, 21 March) that I have been trying to give Mrs Thatcher a 'Conservative philosophy'. Nothing could be further from my niind. I am not, and never have been, one of her advisers. The giving of advice to politicians is not something that I am likely to be good at.! do not in any case have much time for the conception of a 'Conservative philosophy'. Whatever Mrs Letwin has been doing for Mrs Thatcher in the past, this is not one of my lines of activity.
Mr Gale was thinking, perhaps, of Conservative Essays which I have edited, which Cassell's will be publishing in June and to which both he and Mrs Letwin among others have contributed. There is, however, a limit to what this sort of book can do. All! hope it will do is suggest a language in which Conservatives and others might think and speak about the Conservative Party. In editing it, I have been acting as an independent member of the party who knows how he would like it to think and speak. If! am asked whether I want Mrs Thatcher to win the next election, the answer is that I do, but that Conservative Essays is directed less at the election than at establishing a tone which will prevail whether she wins or not and, in the event of her losing, whether she remains leader or not.
Maurice Cowling Peterhouse, Cambridge
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