Sir: I don't quite see why your rather sneer- ing
piece says that Charles Williams has failed to live up to his early promise. Your reason seems to be that he is a socialist and not a Tory. His achievements:
Head of School Captain of Cricket at Oxford Joint M.D. of Barings (actually, one of several) Chairman of the Prices Commission Chairman of Ansbacher And a potential Cabinet Minister if the socialists are elected to govern; allied to the facts that he is a practising Christian and a very competent clarinettist (and Chairman of the Academy of St Martin's), plus Deputy Leader of the Party in the Lords and spokesman on Trade and Industry. All that would be the envy of most people.
I think that to be a socialist and a mer- chant banker can cause ideological prob- lems — probably the case at Ansbacher (but some of their later activities, after Lord Williams's departure, were scarcely admirable); and I certainly knew of his socialist sympathies in the Fifties and Six- ties. He is a strongly-principled, ambitious person who probably felt that the Left offered him a much better chance of suc- cess, and power, than the other side. And as for working for Maxwell, many others have done that.
David Fasken
9 Mortlake Road, Richmond Surrey
Previous page
