Considering Brussels' decision that we must soon start charging VAT on our newspapers, books, bus and train fares, all foodstuffs (not just the unhealthy varieties), medicines, house purchases and children's clothes, all I can say is that those Continental pension schemes really must be grossly underfunded if they need so much money to help them keep going.

The impositions will mean a tax on knowledge for the first time in 150 years, increased charges for poor train services, the starvation of many of our elderly, soaring NHS costs, sky-high mortgage repayments and children having to go to school in rags, with cheerful, retired SS troopers toasting the Chancellor of the Exchequer for keeping them in the style to which they have become accustomed.

But at least we will be converging with Continental tax policy, so bringing us closer to adopting the euro - which will, we are assured by governments at home and abroad, be in our own best interests.

-Ian Hills, Brighton