Redeeming qualities
Sir: I really must protest at Robert Harris's savage attack on John Patten (Diary, 2 April). The article by Patten which inspired the attack contained a well argued and entirely justified verbal assault upon one Edward Pearce. This simple act alone deserves our heartfelt praise. Indeed it is difficult to overestimate its redeeming qual- ities. Until very recently I had believed the BBC programme The Moral Maze, on which Pearce is a regular panellist, to be a fatuous waste of time and licence-payers' money. I had also considered the publicist Max Clifford to be an unpleasant man engaged in a deeply unpleasant profession. But when, during a recent edition, Clifford told Pearce, in the most explicit terms, to stick his sanctimonious opinions up his fun- damental orifice, my views of both Clifford and the programme improved immeasur- ably. By the same token, I am convinced that even John Patten cannot so absorb incident light as to justify the colour Harris painted him.
M.J.C. Waller
Glenclyne, Brook Lane, Cropthome, Pershore, Worcestershire
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