SIR - I was very concerned by L Spiteri's letter about the demise of the West Mercia Police (June 22) if only because I actually found myself agreeing with most of what he had written! Then I came to the final paragraph, where he tried to claim that the European Union was not responsible for the destruction of our community policing. Even more worrying were the comments by Mike Foster MP and a police spokesman in your article of June 29 headlined "Stay of Execution of West Mercia".

We have come to expect rose-tinted nonsense about the EU from Mr Spiteri, and Mike Foster was bound to toe the New-Labour party line. But if the chief constable now thinks he has "forged a relationship with the new Home Secretary" and our local force is safe, I am afraid he is deluding himself. We all know how this deceitful and spin-obsessed Government operates by now. Every time one of its unpopular policies runs into heavy criticism, they back off for a while, announcing a 'policy review' or 'further consultation', and so on. Then, when the fuss has died down (or our attention has shifted to its next piece of lunacy) it quietly implements the policy it first thought of, using a different method.

To be fair, the present Government has no choice, as the UK is already bound by EU treaty to alter its policing and judicial structures. The establishment of a European Police Force (Europol) was agreed by John Major when he signed the Maastricht Treaty in 1992. Tony Blair has simply carried on implementing EU diktats.

R G SPENCER,

Malvern.