Sir - Mark Starr suggests I should make an apology for my comments regarding his deliberate distortions on the new EU pyrotechnics directive. I will offer not one apology but two.

The first apology is to Tom Smith of the CBI and David Southerland of the Department of Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform, whose remarks were quoted so selectively by Mark Starr. I rang both of them.

Tom Smith has confirmed that it is the British standards for fireworks that have been used as the basis for this directive - so you could argue that instead of the EU apparently telling us what to do it is the UK telling the rest of Europe.

David Southerland has confirmed that the new directive is clear, transparent, to be welcomed, and we would not want to change it'. My apology to them is that I had to bother them with two phone calls to find out.

My second apology is to Worcester News readers who may find less than riveting such ding-dong correspondence between someone obsessed about blaming Brussels' for everything regardless of the facts, and someone who believes in presenting the facts. Sorry readers - as long as nonsense gets peddled, it needs to be rebutted.

Philip Bushill-Matthews MEP, European Parliament, Brussels.