FLOAT like a butterfly, sting like a bee — this was a motto I briefly adopted in the 1980s.

After graduating, I returned to the factory job I had been doing before university. Neil Kinnock took over as leader of the opposition in 1983.

Not having much of a social life, every evening after work I studied Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and Marxist literature. Opposed to both, I felt sure I could make a telling and original contribution to the debate.

In November 1984 I used the perhaps unlikely forum of the New Musical Express to publish a letter attacking nuclear unilateralism, using largely familiar arguments.

Meanwhile, I engaged in a frantic search for a quote from the canon of Marxist literature which I could use to potentially devastating effect.

I found it in the works of Leon Trotsky, thus: “... heaven is the only fortified position for military operations against dialectical materialism or Marxism.” This I used as the basis for my little ‘military operation’, timed deliberately to appear in the New Musical Express the week of the Neil Kinnock interview.

It was extreme. It had to be to meet its purpose. Here is the letter: 27th April 1985: “The Doors’ Jim Morrison is a good example of what happens when a pious or religious person spends a lifetime collecting virtues with one eye on heaven.

Morrison had done this in the life he had immediately prior to the one in which he became famous. He gained his slice of heaven but only at the cost of burning up the virtues previously obtained. Dead for 14 years, he may have entered a less propitious incarnation now.

In contrast, John Lennon’s life was one of much greater emotional and personal stability.

This should mean he will wait considerably longer before choosing a new incarnation.

Rock does not lack visionaries today ... people like Sting or Chris de Burgh. It seems a pity that other groups, like Scritti Politti, the Fall or the Redskins take their political inspiration from that gloomy belligeranti Marx. It is the anti-Marxists who, in my opinion, are the real radicals today!

R.A.L., Andover, Hants”.

This letter was calibrated carefully for maximum effect.

Lord Kinnock is a perfectly nice man but he could never have been Prime Minister.

When he got close, in 1992, his nerve failed, most notably at that triumphalist Sheffield rally, as I hoped it would.

Richard Laversuch, Beales Close, Andover.