Sir - The latest anti-EU scare-story, promoted by UKIPper David Carney (Letters, 4.9.'14) is a particularly silly one. He complains that he will no longer be able to by an obsolete, power-guzzling vacuum-cleaner of over 1600 watts.

This whole EU initiative is about making the world's designers come up with machines that need less power, make less noise and cost less to run. All makers have known about it for years; and they have quite easily adapted their models.

Contrary to Mr. Carney's misunderstanding, wattage does not equate to cleaning performance. Mr. Carney cites Which, but, unfortunately for his argument, its German equivalent found that only one of the twenty top-rated German cleaners would be banned.

Moreover, the UK Which best-buy "eco" machine, with a 1,200 watt motor, provides the same performance as the typical 2,000 watt conventional cleaner.

This directive is calculated to save more electricity than was used, in total, by Nigeria (pop. 178 million) in 2012, and thus to rely less on fuel imports from unreliable places such as Russia: not so silly at all, really.

David Barlow

Worcester