LETTERS: DESERT ISLAND RISKS

Sir: If my father had been Home Secretary and I had selected for his Desert
Island Discs "Get off my cloud" (Rolling Stones), "California Dreaming"
(Mamas and Papas) or "No Woman No Cry" (Bob Marley), the sillier press of
the time might easily have insinuated that I had set the old man up by
choosing songs or singers associated with drugs. (Thirty years on, I did
choose these records for my own Desert Island exile.) My children did not
embarrass me by their choice of "History" by The Verve. Nor am I so out of
touch as to have been taken by surprise by the lyrics.

Being the child of someone in the public eye is never easy. It is, however,
made much more difficult when wholly erroneous assumptions are turned into
hard fact, as Glenda Cooper did in her feature ("You're an embarrassment",
14 July).

Jack Straw, Home Secretary, Home Office, London SW1

Checked-by: Melodi Cornett