6 MAY 2006, Page 17

Fascists are socialists

From Frederick Forsyth

Sir: Lord Tebbit (Letters, 29 April) is quite right to rebuke idle journalism which relentlessly repeats untruths instead of analysing the meaning of the words and phrases it uses. It is a matter of record, not opinion, that fascism, Nazism and communism all sprang from the womb of socialism. All three are revolutionary creeds, the exact antithesis of conservatism, which is anti-revolutionary.

Thus if you move to the right of the Conservative party, you will not be in the company of the BNP but more likely with the American Republican neocons. If you go left of Labour, you meet both communism and BNP-style fascism.

Frederick Forsyth Hertford