MAY I unreservedly apologise through your newspaper to Baroness Blatch for my letter of June 1 when I attributed remarks made by Lady Blackstone to Baroness Blatch.

Lady Blatch has informed me that she took no part in the debate on Anglo-German relations in the House on May 22 and I have offered her my sincere apologies.

To clarify the matter in question, the following statement was made by Lady Blackstone, who said in the House on May 22: "Some of the vulgar stereotyping that takes place is regrettably based on envy and the failure to come to terms with our own relative economic failure and national decline.

"Some people, I fear, have still not quite forgiven the defeated Germans for their economic success since the Second World War."

The point of my letter still stands. The reason for Germany's economic success since World War Two was the cancellation of its national debt on the orders of Hitler while Britain is still paying back monies loaned to fight the Napoleonic Wars and still subject to the crushing burden of an unrepayable national debt which increases every day - hence the major reason for our economic failure and national decline.

SYLVIA NOBLE (Mrs), Albert Road, Colne.

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