Letter: Omen for Major?

Sir: As we enter a general election year, it may be of interest to recall what Salisbury said to Balfour about a failing Disraeli administration.

As head of a Cabinet his fault was want of firmness. The chiefs of Departments got their own way too much. The Cabinet as whole got it too little, and this necessarily followed from having at the head of affairs a statesman whose only final political principle was that the Party must on no account be broken up, and who shrank therefore from exercising coercion on any of his subordinates.

PHILIP GOLDENBERG

Woking, Surrey