3 JANUARY 2004, Page 24

The last word?

From John Laughland

Sir: Having initially pretended that my review of his book contained '22 errors and misrepresentations', Christopher Booker is now reduced to defending a single boring quibble about whether I should have written 'documentation' instead of 'legislation' when referring to the official publications of the European Union. Fair enough. My point was that he would have written a better book if he had concentrated on some of this material, instead of trying to write history. He also alleges falsely that my review was inspired by personal pique because I am criticised in his book, but this is based on a misreading of my own work. I have never attributed the intellectual ancestry of the EU to the Nazis.

John Laughland

London W6