YOUNG SOCIALISTS
SIR,---lain Macleod arrogantly asserts 'There is little doubt that the Young Socialists .... have been involved' in the heckling of Tory ministers during the election campaign. How clever to use such a phrase as 'there is little doubt.' Macleod infers that he can't prove his statement to be true, but he has dropped a name and leaves the rest to the fertile imaginations of his readers. As an ex-member of the Young Socialists and as a journalist who has reported and studied the movement for nearly five years, I think I am in a better position than lain Macleod to disprove the smear against the YS made by a number of leading Tories, now happily basking in opposition. Of course. many Young Socialists attended Tory election meetings and many of them no doubt heckled the speakers, but there was certainly; no organised, national attempt to break- up meetings.
I studied a number of television recordings of meetings where heckling took place; the cameras frequently tracked in on those responsible and 1 did not once recognise any members of the YS. Two students who wrote to the Guardian to admit that they went along to Douglas-Home's meetings to heckle were at pains to stress they had no eonnec-
• tions with the YS. But the best evidence' of all is that the hecklers, in many parts of the country, called 'Wilson, Wilson, Wilson'; there are few Young Socialists who would engage in the cult of that particular personality!
ROGER ettottz 29 Tuition() Avenue, NW5
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