I am writing to express my incredulity at Peter Mandelson's response to the findings of the Neill Report, which recommends that the Government applies equal funding to both arguments during the Euro referendum.

Britain's possible entry into a Monetary Union is destined to be one of the most important, and conceivably one of the last, decisions the country ever takes.

Given the gravity of the issue it is essential that the referendum retains a clarity afforded only through parity of Government funding. Instead Mr Mandelson is disdainful of this suggestion and continues to see the issue as an opportunity to exercise the Government's own brand of democracy which roughly translates as 'let the people have their say, so long as it concurs with that of the Government.'

This raises a fundamental question.

To what extent is it appropriate that taxpayers' money should be used to champion the chosen policy of the Government?

Can the Government really draw on tax revenue to exert disproportionate financial influence in the outcome of referenda?

Labour seems to have difficulty in remembering that ultimately it is there to do the bidding of the people, not the other way round.

If Labour is serious about their democratic beliefs they must concede that both 'yes' and 'no' camps in the Euro referendum are subject to equal Government funding.

This they cannot do, of course, because it automatically means conceding that their behaviour during the devolution referenda was inappropriate.

Timothy Kirkhope,

Conservative Prospective Euro Candidate,

Dewar Close,

Collingham,

Wetherby.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.