KEV MCSTRAVRICK (HAS, Dec 12) clearly didn't understand the subtlety of my original letter (Dec 9) and to reinforce that view, happily insults anyone with a conservative outlook as wishing to introduce Nazi-style policies.

Those with a perfectly reasonable right-of-centre view are the last group in Britain that are fair game for outright insults.

HAS is a mere microcosm where writers add socialism to their articles by way of implying they have a monopoly on decency and compassion, which the readership should happily accept without question.

Each time you challenge this view with the uncomfortable historical facts, expect an authoritarian backlash. Why can't those that today call themselves socialists accept that the world has had some truly wicked regimes and evil men who claimed they were socialists and carried out heinous acts in the name of socialism?

Add Mussolini - leader of the Italian Socialists - to that of Hitler, the leader of the German National Socialists. Perhaps look up Stalin and Mao's agricultural policies (among others) that killed tens of millions, Pol Pot, the Cambodian communist revolutionary who led the Khmer Rouge from 1963 until 1997, and now North Korea is charged with purging disabled people from society.

These leaders all claimed to be adherents to some form of socialism/communism.

Jim Tague, Bishop Auckland

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