IN HIS article "Whitehall secrets are out of the bag" (LET, March 1) Bill Jacobs' assessment of the situation concerning the last Labour government under "Sunny Jim Callaghan" and the secrecy surrounding the ordering of Chevaline missile warhead are quite correct.

However, Callaghan ordered this weapon against the background of the Cold War and the tensions which it occasioned.

The present Tory government, on the other hand, had no external enemy to speak of directly threatening them and, therefore, I would contend that while two wrongs don't make a right, their knavish antics in selling arms for profit are much worse in the moral sense than previous governments which at least were trying to make sure that the Russians were not coming over here uninvited - for a permanent stay.

All governments, regardless of political tone and colour, do disreputable things from time to time, but I defy Bill Jacobs to say when a Labour government made ordinary working men such as those at Matrix Churchill, the scapegoats for the type of actions that this right wing group of "Arthur Daleys" used in trying to make a nice little earner.

DUNCAN McVEE, Robin Bank Road, Darwen.

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