Raised in atmosphere of the class war

SIR - Apologies for the unavoidable delay in replying to John Appleyard’s assertion (T&A, Letters, February 12) that Ed Milliband’s father was not a Marxist but a working class plumber. In fact he attended at the London School of Economics (where else) and in 1972 took up the Chair of Politics at Leeds University. He later returned to London where he became a close friend and confident of Eric Hobsbawm, the Marxist historian and loyal member of the Communist party until it dissolved in 1991. When asked in a television interview whether Stalin was right to order the execution of 15 to 20 million of his own people Hobsbawm said “yes”.