Loyal, but to whom?
From Mr Martin Huggins Sir: One of the unspoken advantages of the old House of Lords was that it provided a cheap and harmless grazing ground for politicians rejected by the electorate, their party or their party leader. Sadly, that grazing ground, now expensive and far from harmless, seems to be provided at the EU Commission.
Chris Patten's solution ('Let's get emotional', 18 May) to the democratic deficit is that the separate peoples of Europe must find an 'emotional commitment' to Europe. Many of us have an emotional commitment to Europe, but certainly not to the EU. Such a response is unsatisfactory to the political elite, so we are expected to work at it to produce the response required — rather like the voters of Denmark and Ireland.
Mr Patten also assumes that loyalties are equal. but they are not: they diminish the more remote they become. Surely even he feels more loyalty to his family than to Europe. It is perhaps characteristic, and certainly significant, that neither Britain nor the UK is included in Mr Patten's list of loyalties. Martin Huggins Edinburgh
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