REGARDING the front page article (EU must be joking, February 21). Apparently our international embassy has secured us £50million pounds.

This is only a small part of the £6billion that Britain pays into the EU annually. It's our money in the first place.

Furthermore, they have the nerve to tell us what to spend it on.

If we hadn't paid it to the EU in the first place we would be free to spend it on what we want.

Also, in the national press it has been revealed that a secret European Parliament report has uncovered "extensive, widespread and criminal abuse" by Euro MPs of staff allowances worth almost £100million a year.

Senior Euro MPs and European officials have tried to hush up an internal audit that found endemic misuse of funds.

Such is the extent of the abuse found in a sample group of 167 Euro MPs, that "terrified" parliamentary authorities have shrouded the report in secrecy.

Hans Gert Pottering, its president, said: "We cannot make this report available to the public if we want people to vote in the European elections."

For goodness sake, let us get off this European gravy train and regain our independence.

M E BYSH (UK Independence Party).