Sir: I must confess to a sneaking admiration for Mr
Skeffington-Lodge in his dogged defence of Mr Wilson in the face of the campaign to discredit the latter (Letters, 16 February). For Mr Skeffington- Lodge is right. Such a campaign does exist.
But why does it exist? Why, week after week is the Prime Minister criticised, abused, vilified? Is it not perhaps because he deserves it? Is it too much to say that as defendant in -a 'breach of promise' action he would be made bankrupt? This is not to say that the Labour government cannot be rightly proud of its humane and sensible advances in the social field,- the changes brought in the law relating to homosexuality and the proposed altera- tions in the divorce laws. And by the same token, the Tories deserved to be voted out of office in 1964 for their lack of effective government in the years immediately prior to that election. Fair is fair.
But when a man's public utterances for over three years now have meant nothing more nor less than nothing is it to be wondered at that public and press alike (Mr Skeffington-Lodge excepted) have reacted with hatred, ridicule and contempt? Far from an economic breakthrough in eighteen months' time, as predicted by your correspondent, I foresee a general election in the autumn of 1968 and with it the end of the Wilson saga.
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