SOCIALISTS love to occupy the high moral ground and look upon those of us who don't share their lofty ideals with barely concealed contempt. However from time to time they are asked to put into practise what they preach so zealously, it is when us mere mortals discover whether or are not they are prepared to practise what they preach.

Take the recent will of Tony Benn, a man who spent his whole life trying to convince us of the righteousness of socialism. The passing on of his rather large estate afforded him the opportunity of paying a big tax bill to fund the kind of 'social justice' he often liked to talk about. Did he pass his own test? Of course not, in order to reduce his inheritance tax bill he executed a perfectly legal 'deed of transfer' which had the net effect of saving his heirs, the Benn family, about £2 million in inheritance tax.

Tony Benn showed us where his true priorities lay; to the many left wing causes he supported and the national exchequer he gave next to nothing, he did the decent thing and what most of us would like to do, he passed his wealth on to his family. The old saying 'watch what people do not what they say' perhaps applies to socialists more than anybody.

Cllr Martyn Cox

Westhoughton North and Chew Moor