SIR —Mr. Henry Kerby, MP, is Probably right • in
thinking that voters are forsaking his party for several different reasons. Two of those he mentions, foreign and colonial policy, have been the cause of My own secession.
But surely he is talking nonsense in suggesting that the party has leant so far to the Left that the Middle and Right may look elsewhere in anger. Where is there for them to look? Abstention is the only pos- sible sanction to the Right-wing dissident, and the antics of the Suez Group showed how empty this threat is when there is any question of profiting the Opposition. I believe the same holds good for individual voters.
There may be those who applaud when Mr. Kerby Writes that 'It is not the business of the Government to hobnob with the Greek or with the Turkish Government,' and when he refers to the establish- ment of Ghana as `tragic'—but such sentiments can only repel anyone of moderate views. I, too, have been angered by Cyprus and Algeria (as I was by Suez), but for precisely the opposite reasons to Mr. Kerby.
If the Conservative Party is to survive, it must Win back the moderates whom it has alienated. I believe that only the fillip of an electoral defeat could bring about the necessary reappraisal of policy which would involve an accompanying sacri- fice of Right-wing heads.--Yours faithfully,
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