LETTER: Economic decline of post-war Britain: myths and realities

From Ms Jan Morris

Sir: Corelli Barnett is right, of course, to emphasise the post-war complacency of the British but it is sad that he should seem to lend the brilliance of his scholarship to a national malaise at least as harmful - endless self-denigration.

One would hardly guess from his analysis of affairs in 1945 that the British, having played a genuinely epic and disproportionate part in the long struggle against Germany, would shortly complete a historical achievement hardly less significant: their withdrawal, generally conducted with honour, grace and goodwill, from the greatest empire the world has ever known.

Yours faithfully,

JAN MORRIS

Llanystumdwy

Gwynedd

27 April