Sunday Times – 29 July 1984

During 1976–1978, a colleague and I organised a campaign in an East London Labour constituency party to publicise and attempt to counter the deselection of moderate Labour MPs by the extreme Left.

At the time, two of our most vociferous critics were Norman Atkinson MP, then Treasurer of the Labour Party, and Arthur Lewis MP, the member for Newham North-West.

It was, therefore, fascinating to read in your main story (front page, July 22) that Norman Atkinson is one of the latest 25 MPs to be threatened with dismissal by the hard Left in the forthcoming round of candidate selections.

Lewis, if course, came to the end of the line last year, when he was forced to fight the General Election as an Independent Labour candidate, after being ousted by his constituency activists despite 33 years' service at Westminster: he came fourth with a derisory 3,000 votes.

How the revolution consumes its own apologists!

Dr JULIAN LEWIS
London SW1