When I last visited Brighton I was chatting with a local professional fisherman. He told me he is allowed a quota of cod per month, the moment he reaches that quota, every cod he catches must be returned to the water. As he uses nets that are set and left overnight, the cod brought on board when he lifts the net next morning are all dead bhut this makes no difference. By law he must not land those fish. If he chose to do so he would face a very heavy fine, plus lose his quota, which means the end of his livelihood.

We have a similar problem in New Zealand, only here is called sizing. Small and large fish do not fetch a good price at market but a fish in the middle range will sell for a much better return. This means all small and large fish are dumped at sea to gain a better overall price for the fish landed. In the north your prime fish is cod, here our prime fish is called schnapper. This week in the supermarket schnapper was selling at $43-00 a kilo, best fillet steak was selling at $24-00 a kilo, and there is nothing the general public can do about the stupid anomaly.

Sadly it won't mean a thing. The UK government are powerless to stop what is going on, the rules are set in Brussels not London. It's insane to throw away perfectly edible table fish when there is so much starvation in the world, anyone who supports such a mindset needs serious medical attention.

The fish are dead, bring them ashore and sell them. Any fisherman discovered to be abusing their quota should have it [the quota] withdrawn. There have been many instances where 'The British' way of life has been lost since joining Europe, this is a classic example.

Indirectly the advent of the EEC was a benefit to us and Australia, although it wasn't perceived as such then. The loss of preferential access to the British market caused us to turn to the much larger potential market of Asia. It caused a lot of pain at the time but it also caused the removal of the preferential access to British manufactured items like cars etc. into NZ, thereby losing sales for Britain.

We also no longer have subsidies for agriculture, as was once the case, so our agriculture is now very efficient by world standards and fortunately everybody has to eat!

Not quite Ann Marie, but at the time you got a guaranteed, close to hand export market that came at the expense of far flung Commonwealth markets. Now that most consumer goods are made in China, the move to Europe is somewhat falling apart.

The words 'Made In England' no longer have any meaning, British made goods fail to have the reputation of yesteryear and spares and repairs are difficult and very expensive.

I truly believe the UK's biggest problem lies firmly with Brussels. Your country is no longer in charge of it's own destiny with most of your social difficulties controlled by edicts from across the water. At present your government is needing to raise taxes and cut expenditure in an attempt to balance the books, but not before the EC has held out a hand for their share first.