Most offensive
Sir: It looks as if the word libertarian, discussed by Mrs Gorman in last week's letters, is on the rocky road to ruin already. Mr Michael Foot used it in a very long three-column letter to the Times last Saturday. To begin with he is very cross because they suggested he might be a fascist, a word he says "is the most offensive in the dictionary of abuse" and which also "debases the language of politics". I wonder where he rates late comrade Nye's vermin tirade of a bygone age?
The salient point in his letter, however, is about closed shop legislation and the individual, where he defends the reasons why the miserable Ferrybridge Six have been picked on for not toeing the line and joining one of the approved 'TUC(k)shop' unions. The laugh line reads ". . . we believe the new TUC proposal should be given a fair trial. If it succeeds, it will have contributed a new strand in the great libertarian tradition which runs through British trade unionism. If it fails, other protections will have to be sought ..." By now we must all know what that could mean. A furtherance of 'TUC-shop libertarianism?' and will that make Mr Foot and his humourless cronies libertarianists'?
Lord George•Brown, also in a letter to the Times last week, told Mr Foot to "for God's sake go". Most important, however, for the honour of the word libertarian, someone had better act quickly before it is too late. Sheila Burns Winsome, 27 Peaks Hill, Purley, Surrey
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