ON THE whole my friends and family are in wonder at my failure to be a Socialist – not even a moderate one, I am afraid.

I have strained every intellectual sinew and still find myself falling short.

In the eighties and nineties I attempted to plough through virtually every tome Marx and Engels wrote and, with less success, Lenin and Trotsky.

For balance, I read critics like Popper, Conquest and von Hayek.

Marx seemed remarkably gloomy for someone supposed to be ushering in an age of peace, justice and the ultimate victory of the proletariat.

Perhaps man needs to believe in his survival and the Marxist system leaves no room for this.

Leonard Cohen said ideally he would like to believe in a spiritual temple from which love, justice, compassion and every other human need could be transmitted around the world.

Maybe this is what will happen.

Richard Laversuch, Beales Close, Andover