Over-50s attack lacks weight
There is no excuse for the kind of intemperate ranting and gross misrepresentation indulged in by Iain Murray in your pages (MW April 27).
Like the rest of your readership, I want to read informed and intelligent news and comment from the world of marketing, not a stream of offensive drivel (in this case about the Government). There are plenty of interesting observations to make about the role of marketing in the political process, and its employment by parties and pressure groups both here and worldwide.
Murray’s column, however, was no more than a saloon bar tirade based on prejudice and spite, with indefensible attacks on the reputations of MPs and officials to boot.
He writes: “It is becoming clear that New Labour does not much care for the elderly.” This is absolute nonsense and a stupid statement to make about any political party or section of the population. It is like saying that the Conservatives hate all the Welsh, or the Greens hate all meat-eaters. This statement leads into a hysterical pack of untruths based on Murray’s wild and wilful misinterpretation of a new report called Winning the Generation Game, which highlights the problems faced by over-50s in the employment market.
It isn’t big and it isn’t clever for columnists to abuse their position by writing articles with so little foundation and so much vitriol gaily sprayed about without reason.
Unless, of course, Murray writes instead for an openly politically-affiliated periodical, not a leading trade journal such as Marketing Week.
Duncan Enright
Marketing manager
Oxford
