PROGRESSIVE REACTIONARIES
SIR.—My sympathy goes out to Mr. Angus Maude in his 'confused state.' Perhaps, I asked myself as I read his article, am I too a Progressive Reactionary? On second thoughts, however. I must correct any wrong impression. Mr. Maude has evidently always been a Tory. I, on the other hand, back iri the dim mists of past time, some twenty years before the days of the Great Lord Altrincham, used to campaign the country as n Radical Liberal, getting at least half a dozen people to my meetings on occasions. Indeed, at that distant date when Angry Young Men were just, angry young men I formed a group that became known as Radical Action and even got a couple of press mentions. Like Mr. Maude, I had a future Chief Whip amongst my associates, and that he does not happen to be a Tory. Chief Whip does not invalidate his claim at all tb be a Chief Whip. At the 1945 Election I styled myself an Independent Progressive, though, of course, everybody else said that I was just another Liberal. Yet here I am these many years later all amongst the Tories and supporting Sir Anthony Eden over Suez—when he went into Suez, I mean. So. though I am not perhaps a Progressive Reactionary, I must obviously be a Reactionary Progressive.
A word, however, of warning to Mr. Maude. It is one of the most distressing symptoms of our state when we consider ourselves to be sane and everybody else to be mad. We merely lack insight into our own condition. Indeed, if We go on like this, it will not be long before we hear 'rat, tat' on the door and stand- ing there will be the Duly ;Authorised Officer, of whose powers and duties I have written in your columns. And though we tell him that an English- man's home is his castle and that not even the Queen of England dare cross our threshold, he will just say 'Yes, yes, yes,' and later we will find this written down as 'An Additional Fact Indicating Insanity.'
Not to worry-, however, for, provided that our wives do not interfere, we shall be able, to pass a peaceful `disacculturated' old age together, amongst the bright cretonne curtains and the gay artificial flowers that are the hallmark of our modern institu- tional subculture. Perhaps, indeed, Mr. Christopher Mayhew may come to visit us. Then we too will be on TV and (with suitably faded-out faces) will be allowed to testify to the comforts with which the Welfare State has provided us in our declining years.
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