13 OCTOBER 1961, Page 11

Sta,—So Roy Jenkins doesn't like Blackpool. But, perhaps, despite his

background, he doesn't really like the vast bulk of ordinary people who find it palatable. It takes him a long time to get there, poor soul! Better that most of us should struggle to find a bed in London or fight our way across it to change stations for Bournemouth or Margate. Half the delegates, won't be able to afford the hotels, anyway, inadequate though they may be by West End standards. And, of course, it might be preferable to resolve the desperate issues he talks about in a suitably refined and rarefied atmosphere rather than in the garish if spacious ballroom which alone in the country can properly house the thousand Labour delegates and people who might wish to hear them.

How remote from the people can our new elite become')