Letter: Willie-wise

LIKE Alan Watkins ("Why Paddy will be the winner on Thursday", 6 June), I can remember the moment Willie Whitelaw uttered his most famous Willieism: "They are going about the country stirring up complacency."

He was speaking at a press conference in Conservative Central Office during the second 1974 election campaign. His claim was that the new Labour government had been persuading people that the economy was in better shape than it actually was, hence "complacency". The alternative version, "stirring up apathy", would make less sense in the context.

SIMON HOGGART

Twickenham, Middlesex