EU cash could fund Olympics

LETTER - The British contribution to Brussels, after European Union subsidies and grants are calculated, is currently £2.6 billion a year.

This is thanks to an annual rebate "to rectify a glaring gap between membership payouts and cash benefits to Britain compared with other member countries".

Glaring or not, this gap was pointedly ignored by other member countries for the first nine years of our membership of the Common Market until Margaret Thatcher hand-bagged them into submission.

This year our contribution will be £5.8 billion rising to £10.2 billion in 2013. It could alternatively cut council tax by 50 per cent, build 40 hospitals a year or pay the total bill for the London Olympics in one year.

Perhaps readers could write and indicate their preference, my own, of course, would be any of them before paying a penny to this ruinous union.

Bob Wydell, Oswestry