Moderate Sir: There is nothing a good Extreme Moderate likes
better than being attacked by a Silly Immoderate — except, perhaps, being attacked by two. So when I discovered that I'd been attacked on the same day by Mr Wheatcroft in the Spectator, by Tribune and by the New Statesman, I felt I'd arrived.
However, the euphoria has now subsided a little; and I think I ought to correct at least one of Mr Wheatcroft's mistakes. He states Mast word,' 14 July), in a passage of more than usual obscurity, that `Mr Marquand clearly aligns himself with the "defectors." ' I'm not sure what that's supposed to mean: but it seems to me to imply that, in some way or other, I share the views of those people who have left the Labour Party to join the Conservative Party.
If Mr Wheatcroft had read the article of mine which he was attacking, he would know that this is not so. I made it quite clear there that I strongly disagree with what I described as the 'neo-liberal" wing of the Conservative Party; and that I think its social-democratic or moderate wing has made the same mistake as Labour's social democrats.
I agree with some (though by no means all) of the defectors' criticisms of the Labour Party. Joining the Conservative Party seems to me an act of lunacy.
David Marquand 2 Boxworth Hall, Stockport, Cheshire.
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