Offside broadside

I have never heard of Gary Day, which means that I know as much about him as he seems to know about me and LM, the magazine I edited until it was forced to close following a libel case brought by ITN.

Not content with attributing views to me that I have never held, Day makes allegations about LM being linked to fascism and Holocaust denial that would be laughable if they were not carried in such a serious publication.

Perhaps the one thing that Day does know about me is that I do not believe journalists should sue for libel. His kind of trashy, gratuitous attack is the price we all have to pay for free speech - although not, one might have hoped, in The THES.

I cannot speak for the book Day was supposed to be reviewing since, contrary to his claims, it has no links with LM other than the fact that the editor of Dumbing Down, Ivo Mosley, invited LM's publisher and arts editor (Claire Fox and Mark Ryan) to contribute two of the 30 chapters. Strangely, Day's review does not manage to mention either of these essays. What was that he said about the book's contributors commenting out of "ignorance" and eschewing "serious debate"?

Mick Hume

Editor, LM (deceased)