IS Chris Davies MEP so naive that he thinks the EU rail directive 91/440 is just about accounting systems (Your Letters, Feb 21). Or does he think that we are naive?

Perhaps Mr Davies hasn't read the directive properly because it is no myth that it instructed the UK Government to separate the infrastructure of the railways from the operating side and, furthermore, for the train operators to conduct their business in line with "market forces", that is in competition for profit. What was a public service was turned into anarchy by profit-hungry privateers subsidised by the taxpayer.

Mr Davies is quite right, British Rail was deliberately starved of funds by the Tories, creating the excuse for the privatisation. But he must ask himself why if it was just the Tories to blame has this New Labour Government not brought it back into public ownership.

He also seems unaware that the EU directive instructed all member states to give access to its rail system to at least one other member state. So we now have the French privateer Connex also being subsidised to the tune of, I think, £58 million.

The biggest cost to the travelling public, however, is in safety. The refusal of Railtrack or the operators to introduce Automatic Train Protection (ATP) has cost lives as, possibly, will the lack of guards. Is he also unaware that the EU is exhorting France, Germany, Belgium, Italy and Spain to privatise those state-owned railways of which he is so rightly proud?

Let us forget directive 91/440 for a moment, though. How about 96/67, the directive instructing us to reduce the monopoly on postal deliveries from 350 grammes to 150 grammes with an ultimate monopoly of only 50 grammes in order to bring about competition in postal services? The maximum weight for a first-class 27p letter is 60 grammes. This will cost 3,000 jobs as well as the one-charge universal stamp price.

Mr Davies talks about "myths". The real myth, and the most general and dangerous one, is that competition improves services instead of causing wasteful duplication and dangerous cost-cutting. Tell that to the bus users, Chris. And whilst you are at it, tell them about the constitution which will turn the EU into a Federal European State.

JIM HOMEWOOD