Working-class outburst
Sir: I am sending this letter to complain about one of the most infuriating and disgusting articles I remember reading in your magazine (20 October). This is 'If symptoms persist . . .' by one Theodore Dalrymple, a pseudonym surely, or perhaps his parents possessed an excessive sense of humour.
After living more than 40 years in a public house and synchronistically spend- ing a quarter of a century physically toiling in the building trade, I suppose I am unquestionably 'working-class', although I find it a bit of a come-down from the 'a member of Christ, the child of God, and an inheritor of the Kingdom of Heaven' status allocated to me on my Christian baptism certificate. Although in some respects I may not be typically 'working-class' at least I conform to the stereotype in the extent to which I dislike many Tory men and women, or at least the foulness of many of their beliefs and attitudes.
Theodore Dalrymple seems to exhibit some of these characters at their most loathsome in the way he endeavours to foster a vicious delusion that working People suffer from collective moral, spir- itual and even physical defects. I do not doubt that the circumstances related in this article may be true but so, for example, would a description of the decline of the `noble' if syphilitic Lord Randolph Chur- chill at the not dissimilar age of 45. His last speech in June 1894, about seven months before he died, presented 'a tragic exhibi- tion of physical and mental decay' (Dic- tionary of National Biography).
Sense surely dictates that people who in their work are continually obliged to per- form swift and accurate actions must neces- sarily possess sensible and clear wits, at least most of the time. It is only too obvious (to me, at any rate) why Dalrym- ple engages in his nasty and malicious exercise. It is that by deluding themselves that 'working-class' people are in some way sub-human, Tories can ease their conscien- ces over their irresponsible selfishness, and vicious and harmful misgovernment.
D. E. H. Haycox
613 Chester Road South, Kidderminster, Worcestershire
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