The article on oysters (The £1 oyster: cut-price shellfish is all the rage – but is eating it advisable?, 27 October) brought to mind the significant role that a single oyster played historically in the decline of the Liberal party.
In December 1914, Percy Illingworth, the universally respected Liberal chief whip, ate what turned out to be a bad oyster and died soon after from typhoid, aged only 45.
Thereafter, Herbert Asquith had immense difficulty in finding an effective and trusted chief whip, finally ending up, in the hung parliament following the 1923 general election, with Vivian Phillipps, whose fatal flaw was that his personal loyalty to Asquith was coupled to a deep dislike of David Lloyd George.
As the problematic parliamentary arithmetic of the first Labour govenment played out over the months of 1924, the split between Asquith and Lloyd George deepened, and Phillipps was unable to exercise the crucial unifying chief whip role, with disastrous results for the Liberal party thereafter.
Thus a single oyster changed British political history.
Michael Meadowcroft
Former Liberal MP and deputy whip
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