The battle of Brighton
Sir: Part of one of the enjoyable days of my by-election effort down here was spent in meet- ing and talking with—not talking at—your political commentator (21 March). We got on well, and I was naturally pleased to know that if he or his friends had previously doubted it, be found I was a reality in flesh and blood pos- sessed also of other aspects of the humanity we all share.
One of these aspects is not unrelated to the firm protest I must make about his assertion that 'I drive a lilac-coloured E-Type Jaguar'— an assertion culled from his article and later, to my annoyance, given wide currency by the BBC. Being a fairly modest person in the judg- ment of my friends, possessed of a measure of good taste, I can think of no greater vulgarity to have fastened on me than to be declared the owner of the machine in question. .Moreover, I loathe all status symbols whether they be motor-cars I cannot afford, or other trivialities of equally transient value, all of them used today to create envy among those who want `to live it up' in front of others. Without being too serious about it, I must ask for an apology. I gather the new MP for Brighton Pavilion does own a Jaguar—of what colour I know not —but I feel Auberon Waugh could scarcely have got things so badly mixed up as a result of the Victorian-type afternoon tea we enjoyed together in my home, and which I arranged because I thought it might accord with his taste.
On two occasions during my campaign I was given a lift in an amethyst-coloured Aston
Martin DB5 which I am told had cost £5,000, information which I now supply for your readers' possible amusement and which I have been at some pains to acquire. To avoid being misjudged I will never ride in this machine in future, and its price—in any case beyond my purse—represents money oddly spent in a world in which millions of our fellow human beings are living in squalor, hunger and de- gradation.
Please, Auberon Waugh. allow me, without comment, to own and drive the small dark green ten horsepower motor-car which was in my open garage when you called on me, and in which I offered to take you to a newspaper office you were to visit.
Auberon Waugh writes: I hope that Mr Skeffington-Lodge will accept my most abject apologies and thanks for his tea, which was delicious. I saw him climbing out of what I took to be a lilac-coloured E-Type Jaguar, but what was plainly an amethyst Aston Martin, on the night of Monday, 17 March (St Patrick's Day), outside the Municipal Technical College. and was so much excited by the spectacle that 1 must have neglected to observe whether he climbed out of the passenger or the driver seat.
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