THE clear message from the French blockade of ports in protest about fuel prices was that the French are supposedly at the heart of the European project yet, when push comes to shove, ordinary people look after themselves and their national interests as they perceive them, not international interests, if they could ever be identified. Now the British are doing similarly, and rightly so. This demonstrates to me that the nation state is the optimum level of self-determination within any international ties of friendship and trade interests.

Common sense and the mechanics of managing anything more unwieldy covering a range of differing interests rules this out on practical grounds, nice an ideal as anything further might seem.

WENDY HANDS, Upton-upon-Severn.