Thank you for your comment.

Following your comments, I have added ‘he was misrepresented’ in the original post above.

I was writing with reference to Le Carre’s letter to the Sunday Times, in which he referred to his interview with you, and wrote:

“He must be forgiven therefore if, while he too was sipping post-prandial Calvados in the evening darkness he describes, he failed to encompass or indeed record the general point I was making about the temptations of defection.”

Although I did link to the letter in full, I am now including the part of the letter that referred to the editorial judgement, which said:

“Only when traduced by your editors does it acquire such disproportionate and damaging significance.”

In his opening sentence of the letter he writes to the editor:

“In your presentation of my interview with Rod Liddle dated 14th September 2008, you misrepresent me on two fronts…”

TimesOnline linked this to the interview, not the news article.

I never use a tape recorder for interviews; I use shorthand, as I was trained to do. If you read the original piece you will see that the quotes are absolutely in context and that Le Carre’s explanation is carried in full. Le Carre protests too much, I think; but that is no excuse for you lot mucking it up.