Relative values
Sir: Fascinating as it was to re-read Iain Macleod's seminal account CA question of loyalty', 14 October) of Lord Home's sur- prise 'inheritance' of the Conservative Party
leadership and consequent appointment as prime minister all those years ago, may I ven- ture to suggest that perhaps the most telling consequence of those intervening decades is the apparent, even more astonishing than generally realised, devaluation of the worth of money? On page 19 of the current issue, you reproduce the front cover of the January 1964 issue, which cost a mere shilling (5p) then, as against 38 shillings (£1.90) today. Either the purchasing power of the pound has plummeted by a factor of 38 times in 313/4 years, or, is it that The Spectator was staggeringly cheap then, or is outrageously expensive today? Whichever, doubtless it forms the basis of an interesting debate between your financial/economics editor and your commercial director.
Writing as I do from a temporary resi- dency in King Edward VII Hospital for Officers in central London, which was also of course Harold Macmillan's temporary base during the illness that led to the Home accession, it is at least heartening to be able to report that the technological, scientific and medical progress over those same 30- plus years, when applied to total hip replacement, is quite astonishing and far outstrips whatever has happened to the value of money!
John Fingleton
19 York House, Upper Montagu Street, London W1
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