Sir – Reason and critical judgement are clearly beyond the capacity of Christopher Gray and will probably remain so.

This week he has surpassed himself, for buried within his pompous potpourri of the banal and inconsequential is the statement that: “He [Jimmy Savile] was also known to have very powerful friends, including Margaret Thatcher.” This is a contemptible innuendo which suggests that a former Prime Minister along with everyone else who kept company with Savile, was party to a conspiracy to protect him from prosecution.

Surely the implication is libellous. Did your house lawyer query this passage, or had he been lulled into a drowsiness by reading the earlier part of Gray’s article?

Lawrence James, Eynsham