My Times
Sir: There I was, just beginning to hold my head up again and venture out in public after my Macmillan blunder of last Decem- ber, and now Dr Casey (Pad Times', 21 March) raises the hue and cry again.
There is no excusing factual error; I can only say that in our office the grief was quite as great as his could be, and the forbearance greater. The correction duly appeared next morning: by painful custom the offender drafts it himself. Most of us are fallible: even Dr Casey, I suspect, did not really mean to assert that Churchill, Home and Callaghan were among those never to have had to serve as leaders of the Opposition.
Beyond that, his article left me in doubt whether he was blaming the Times for not now being what it used to be, or for having been what it used to be, or both. The faults he alleged in its past were grave; most of the faults he sought to display in its present were relatively superficial. He seemed to imply at bottom that long ago the paper was stylish but wrong, and that today it is un-stylish but less wrong than it has been for a good many years — but that it would hurt him too much to say the good word. There is a worthwhile testimonial wrapped up in that, for those who value his judg- ment.
I suppose the Times is never going to live down having been the first in its genre, any more than the BBC is. After 30 years of disillusionment Dr Casey still cannot for- give it for not being what in truth it never has been — the voice of ultimate authority, the 'governor' of governments. The
LETTERS
periods when the paper itself has been most infected by the same illusion are those when it has gone most astray. `One quality paper among the others' is exactly what the Times inescapably is — the best of them, so far as our efforts can make it so. We want to be right, and stylish, and read, and are even ready to set Dr Casey's teeth on edge if that seems unavoidable in the attempt. Of course the paper's history contains great virtues to imitate as well as temptations to avoid. But sticking to subfusc precedent was not the way the great editors `created' their public, in Dr Casey's slightly facile image. Journa- listic authority is not secured by right and custom, but always has to be earned afresh, in the right way for the time — and that has to be sought out.
George Hill
13 Leverton Street, London NW5
John Casey writes: I am aware that Chur- chill, Home and Callaghan became Leaders of the Opposition after their premiership. I Should have thought that the natural mean- ing of Mr Hill's original phase was that Macmillan was alone in not having been Leader of the Opposition before he became Prime Minister.
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