Sir: In what one hopes may be the last days
of his leadership Mr Heath is bemoaning the "constitutional innovation" of the referendum. It is an innovation which arises as a direct consequence of the ruthless trampling underfoot of the long-accepted principle of the mandate in his determination to force the country into the Common Market with results that are no,w plain for all to see.
Those who for their own purposes maintain that the sovereignty of Parliament is undermined by granting the electors the right to say yea or nay to European bondage would do well to reflect upon what was said by Lord Hartington, scion of the ducal houqe of Devonshire, when he parted company from Gladstone on the question of Home Rule: "There are certain limits which Parliament is morally bound to observe and beyond which Parliament has morally not got the right to go in its relations with the constituents. The constituents of Great Britain are the
source of power, at all events in the House of Commons." In my sixty-seventh year and with a varied experience which in my time brought me into contact with all sections of the community I cannot recall any party leader who inspired such distaste and dislike among people of moderate opinion as Mr Heath has done. Assuming his removal from an office for which he is totally unsuited by temperament and background, one must hope also that Mr Wilson's retirement to the cloistered seclusion of Oxford will not be long delayed. For more than a decade the nation has had to endure fifth-rate leadership by fifth-rate men.
J. D. Godber 22 Sandcross Lane, Reigate, Surrey
Previous page
