7 JULY 1979, Page 16

Sensitive

Sir: The sensitive reaction of your Mr Chancellor to the jocular remark from Sir James Goldsmith is yet another example of the known fact that journalists are good at handing it out but cannot take it (as, indeed, was the action brought by the sensitive Mr Gillard). His one and a half columns of praise — or apologia? — for Private Eye seem an excessive response to an insult which, for all I know, may have been perfectly just.

Vincent Sheldon 25, Preston Way, Billericay, Essex