Letter: Conspiracy theory

Sir: I agreed with Stephen Pollard's article "Pigs on a poster are the least of our worries" (31 January) until the end, when he made the extraordinary claim that "neo-con" is code for "imperialist Jew".

"Neo-con" is merely code for "neoconservative", a well-accepted political movement in the United States, centred on the Project for the New American Century think-tank. I am sure that some would claim that neoconservatives are somehow all imperialist Jews, but I could also find people who claim that the US media is a huge Jewish conspiracy: could I then be accused of being anti-Semitic if I merely used the word "media"?

Claiming that use of the word "neo-con" is anti-Semitic is sillier than claiming that depicting Michael Howard as a flying pig is anti-Semitic; this latter claim Mr Pollard seems to describe as "dangerously counter- productive". Might I suggest that to tar people who oppose neoconservative views as anti-Semitic (which I think seems to be his aim) might also be counter-productive.

MATTHEW DAWS

Oxford