Murray slams Harry's mates

Or at least one of them. His three-part series answering "the 'left-wing' case for a pro-war stance in this week's Star names Hitchens, Aaronovitch, Nick Cohen and John Lloyd but it's simply a critique of a book by Oliver Kamm, who as Murray states, has not been a member of the Labour Party or any other for more than 15 years.

I'm surprised Murray considered Kamm's rubbish worth so much ink. Kamm writes for the Times and I doubt whether many Star readers are even aware of his existence. During the Cold War some communists took the Times on the debatable grounds that it had the best Moscow correspondents but those that I knew cancelled their orders during the Sun dispute in the 1980s and I doubt whether any of the Murdoch press has much a readership amongst communists in Britain these days.

While the others are hardly household names to working people I would have thought Aaronovitch, Hitchens and Nick Cohen would have made a better focus for Murray as they did once claim to be "left" and Aaronovitch, of course, was one of the leading Euros in the old CPGB.

Guy Burgess
Eton & Cambridge