LETTERS Backbench enjoyment
Sir: You say in your editorial of 20 June that `all those whom Mrs Thatcher has previously dismissed have been unsuccess- ful rebels. Being men for the most part preoccupied with power they did not enjoy the backbenches. They had little rapport with the House of Commons. Each wrote his book of wounded pride and somewhat slipshod theory. None attracted a follow- ing'.
All? I might have disagreed on style but not on policy. On the contrary I was calling for a less grand and more 'bourgeois' Tory party in pamphlets and speeches well before Mrs Thatcher even emerged. I greatly enjoy the backbenches. My `theories' are not slipshod and I predict they will dominate the policy debate, and your pages, over the next Parliament.
I do not know about followings, but there are plenty of Tories who share my standpoint and who have time neither for the old 'care through more public spend- ing' brigade not for the naiveties of the technical monetarists.
You are probably quite right about the excellent Mr Biffen. But please do not write rubbish about the rest of us.
David Howell
House of Commons, London SW1
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