Judging the PMs
From Mr Tom Benyon Sir: Taki claims (High life, 26 August) that a number of prime ministers, including Harold Wilson, will be forgotten in com- parison with the differences made by Baroness Thatcher, Ronald Reagan and de Gaulle. Time will tell.
But when future historians judge the con- tribution made by leaders, they should not only view the positive landfalls for which leaders should be given due credit but also take into account the differences made by the leaders who resolutely piloted us away from rocks on which otherwise we would surely have foundered. I suggest that, at least to those born in the Forties and Fifties, Harold Wilson's contribution in resisting Lyndon Johnson's acute pressure that we join the USA as participants in the Vietnam War was as substantial as any of the listed contributions of Taki's list of favourites. Whether Margaret Thatcher would have been as prudent is a matter for speculation. I suspect not.
Tom Benyon
Adstock, Buckinghamshire
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