Sir - GB Dipper (Letters, 15.8.'14) is never going to "get it", is he? It must, sadly, be beyond his intellectual compass to understand the difference between fact and opinion; and much of his diatribe against me is a flower blooming in the spring: nothing to do with the case.

He position is built, apparently, on "opinions" which I expressed in a 8.8.'14 letter. There were no opinions put forward in that letter; merely a fact about an 2004 EU Directive which another correspondent had happily ignored.

Mr. Dipper would do us all a favour if he could get his head around the idea that, although we are all entitled to our own opinions, we are not entitled to our own facts.

I strongly suspect that his real problem is that I am in danger of taking his grievance away from him. He self-identity is defined by what he is against, and, if a few real-life facts unfortunately get in the way of this, he loses that sense of self.

If he could only stick to the point, it might be worth further engagement. However, he cannot and it is not. He has demonstrated this, yet again, by signally failing to respond to my factual challenge of 18th. July.

David Barlow

Worcester