SIR,—Angus Maude hasn't done his homework. All —and more—of the
substantive criticisms he makes of Conservative policy were considered and tackled by the party policy groups which have been meeting since the defeat of 1964. Not all their deliberations have been published. Few have really got across to the public through the Rhodesian blanket. But I should have thought that as a shadow minister, Mr. Maude would have taken the trouble to acquaint himself with the groups' findings on the points he has now raised. Evidently he has not.
That Mr. Maude is disloyal to his leader is neither here nor there. That he is presumptuous in thinking that he, and only he, has received a revelation on the party's needs, proves only what I have always thought—that Mr. ,Maude sees himself as a political Paul of Tarsus, much given to shafts of light on the road to Oxford, as well as to long-winded epistles.
The main criticism of Mr. Maude is that, not for the first time, his timing is poor. If only he had resigned a few months earlier he might have been named editor of the SPECTATOR, following the Macleod precedent. What a narrow shave for SPECTATOR readers.
House of Commons, SW I
ELDON GRIFFITHS
Previous page
