LETTER: Moved to tears by conference speech

From Ms Laura Martin-Clark

Sir: I wonder if anyone else has picked up on what seemed a most confused part of John Major's speech at the Tory conference. I refer to his attack on George Orwell as a "public-school socialist" and a name-changer.

This struck me as bizarre in that Mr Major has previously quoted George Orwell with approval. Did he not make his own some lines from the introduction to the Lion and the Unicorn about spinsters cycling to church through the early morning mist?

Mr Major appears to believe that, far from having originated and exposed the concept of "double-think", Orwell was a proponent of it. That he should attempt to associate Tony Blair with the same fault, simply by virtue of a coincidence in their surnames [Orwell's real name was Eric Blair] puts the cap on a glorious example of his own particular strain of "muddle- think".

Perhaps he should see Gillian Shephard after school for some extra homework on the writings of George Orwell, about whom he appears to hold contradictory views?

Yours sincerely,

Laura Martin-Clark