Wellington's beef
Sir: The paranoid attitude of some modern politicians towards an often hostile press, highlighted in Kelvin MacKenzie's article (`Hair yesterday, gone today', 19 July), is one evidently shared by many of their pre- decessors. In his recently published biogra- phy of the Duke of Wellington, Christopher Hibbert states that Wellington 'generally affected to consider most journalists and nearly all newspapers as troublesome mischief-makers and to be, as far as possi- ble, ignored'.
Quoting from The Greville Memoirs, Hib- bert goes on to say that Wellington later came to believe that he had 'committed a great error in not paying more attention to the press, and in not securing a portion of it on his side and getting good writers into his employment, but he never thought it neces- sary to do so and was now [in 18311 con- vinced what a great mistake it was'.
Dudley Paget-Brown
58 Pelhams Walk, Esher, Surrey
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