WALT Meadows should be congratulated for his honesty in setting out the true logic of the Tories' position on the euro (Letters, October 9).

The Tories pretend that what they are standing for is the independence of Britain and the pound. In reality, they know that the pound is not strong enough to stand up on its own to the battering that international currency speculators can dish out.

It needs to be part of a larger trading currency.

So, if not the euro, then where? As Mr Meadows makes admirably clear in his letter, the answer is to join up with the UK dollar.

People can judge for themselves how much the Americans would let the pound remain 'independent' - or how much influence Britain would have.

It is a pity that the Tory party leadership is not so honest.

It is a pity that newspapers like The Sun, The Times and The Daily Telegraph, whose owners' business interests would be best served if the pound were subservient to the dollar, are not so honest.

For the moment, we can afford to wait and see and to choose our moment carefully. But in the long run, the choice for the British people is simple - we become equal partners with other nations about our size on the other side of the English Channel, or we become junior partners with a country five times our size on the other side of the Atlantic.

COUN DAVE HOLLINGS, Sudell Road, Darwen.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.