BOB Feal-Martinez writes to say that I criticise the UKIP for making things up about the EU and I do, but in fact the UKIP do worse than this, they distort the truth and this gives their propaganda an aura of truth. A prime example of this is his letter published on January 4, 2011 that he asks me to comment on.

Bob says that EU directive 2007/23 bans children under 16 from buying Christmas crackers. This is both untruthful and duplicitous. It is duplicitous because the directive seeks to standardise the manufacture and sale of fireworks and pyrotechnic devices across the EU and not just set an age limit on the sale of Christmas crackers. It is untruthful because the directive sets the age limit at 12 not 16 as Bob would have us believe. It was the British Government that set the age limit at 16. The last government were fond of tacking things onto EU legislation.

Bob says that it is the EU's Christmas present to 450 million people. Leaving aside the above, crackers are a particularly British habit which brings the number down to 60 million, of these about eight million are under 12, I cannot see any one under eight trying to buy crackers so this brings the number down to about three million, 150 times fewer people disadvantaged than Mr Feal-Martinez would have us believe. I am an old boy with grey hair and beard, he is, from the pictures I have seen of him, in the SA, of a similar age, so I do not think he or I should worry about being asked for ID.

STEVE THOMPSON Norman Road Swindon