Savaged and misinterpreted by that unholy duo of Steve Metcalfe and Paddy Shannon for my complacent right wing ranting, I feel I must set the record straight.

Paddy's main thrust appears to be that I'm serenely accepting the unjust status quo while criticising Steve Metcalfe for having the courage to 'see the big picture', as he puts it.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

I have every respect for anyone with the courage to attempt to come up with his own interpretation and not simply accept what the media tries to sell us.

But I think it's highly disingenuous of Paddy to pretend that uncritically accepting hardcore socialism can be in any way interpreted as 'putting those pieces together for themselves'.

Accepting socialism is a prime example of accepting someone else's picture.

Mr Metcalfe, as usual, doesn't bother with the niceties of argument, preferring to baldly say socialism is the social order in which everyone has a full sense of belonging.

He also points out that there is little evidence of people murdering each other before 'the beginning of recorded history'.

By definition there can be no record of the time before records began!

I'm not, as Paddy seems to think, a crusty Colonel Blimp living in some Daily Express fuelled Utopia.

I am neither right nor left wing, having put the pieces together for myself some time ago.

I do believe however, that socialism as a political ideal is redundant and potentially more unjust than the semi-democracy we currently live in.

Lenin himself recognised this when he said the service rendered by Marx and Engels to the working class was that they 'taught the working class to know itself and be conscious of itself'.

The corollary of this was in-creased demands - things like paid holidays, a health service, maternity leave, holidays in the sun, Pot Noodles, the list goes on...

I'm not arguing for consumerism here, merely pointing out that capitalism has evolved beyond all recognition in response to demand, consigning pure socialism to the dustbin of history.

So there.

Simon Burrows, Morecambe.