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Spectator readers respond to recent articles
Maritz Vandenberg
London SW15
Great suit
Sir: Reading Joan Collins’s piece on Doug Hayward (‘An Actor’s Life’, 17 May) remind-ed me of the brief but happy time I spent working for Doug in his Mount Street shop. My job was to answer the telephone, chat up the customers, and rip up the tacking on the suits after fittings, a menial occupation but made memorable by Doug’s wit and good humour. Only once did I see him nonplussed.
A tiny American woman came into the shop to ask him how much he charged to make a suit. On being told the price for the usual size by Doug, she said, ‘OK, I’ll go get my husband’, and returned with the tallest, broadest man any of us had ever seen. Clothing his gigantic frame would require yards and yards of expensive material, wiping out any profit for Doug. It was probably the neatest scam anyone had ever pulled on him and, to his credit, left him shaking with laughter.
Sarah Bradford
London SW6
Ear witness
Sir: It was Jocelyn Hambro, chairman of Hambros Bank — not, as your correspondent Richard Skilbeck tells us (Letters, 17 May), Bernard Levin — who called Harold Wilson the worst prime minister since Lord North. I was there to hear him say it. The Wilson government then ordered an inquiry into Hambros.
Christopher Fildes
London W8
General knowledge
Sir: If Charles Moore (The Spectator’s Notes, 10 May) thinks that Che Guevara held the rank of general, it just shows that Collegers don’t know as much as they think they do.
Iain Taylor
Berlin, Germany
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nic careem
May 25th, 2008 11:58amDear Sir
I left the Labour party more than 18 months ago highly dissallusioned with its loss of direction and purpose. I will not take the easy option by blaming Gordon Brown for Labour's demise...that would be too easy! It far more serious, changing the leadership is not the solution, the party really needs a general reflection on where things went wrong and this can only be done when it is in opposition.
It was not an easy decision for me to leave the party that I devotedly campaigned for, for more than 16 years and I hope my many friends in Labour will understand why I have decided to join David Cameron's Conservatives. I joined the Labour party because I genuinely wanted to make a difference to ordinary peoples's lives and for a while under Tony Blair we were doing just that. I now feel that the Conservative party is in a better position to help our country regain its footing.
I have met David Cameron on two occasions in the past two years and I like his brand of caring Conservatism. I genuinely believe that his brand of Conservatism is what our country has been waiting for, for generations.
David Cameron has demonstrated that he is a true man of the people, and no Labour supporter should fear the coming of a Conservative government.
Labour has a had a good innings, but they have been at the crease for far too long without adding anymore runs. Our country now needs a team to create a country where aspiration is admired and emulated not envied, a country where hard work is fairly rewarded, a country where every young citizen feels that there is a sense of purpose to their lives, a country where social justice and equality are more than just well meaning words, a country which cares about dismantling extreme poverty, by not just throwing money at it, but by investing time and money in creating opportunities for the poor to help make their own pathways to a better life.
This is my mission goals in life. This is the reason I joined the Labour party. I am increasingly becoming confident that the modernising Conservatives are now in the best position to do this. It really is time for change!