CorbettBalls?
Oh dear! So the multi-state EU works like multi-state India, does it? (Sprout, Jan/Deb edition). Has Richard Corbett not noticed the remarkable difference?
When the democratically elected Indian government makes a decision, it picks it up and runs with it. When the democratically elected European Parliament makes a decision it can't do a thing about it. The decision is referred to the members of an unelected mafia who then what they like with it.
V Sanctus, Bedfordshire

Editor,
I thought The Quisling's column might be more relevant to real life than usual in the Feb/March issue. The democratisation of India is a case study which proves, in my opinion, what a great thing the British Empire
was, and why the entire world should be bloody grateful to us for
sorting them out. (It also brings back memories of long ago studies, and a very pretty lecturer at the LSE...........)
However, I was lost before I got to the third paragraph. Could you please ask him, on my behalf, what the fuck he is going on about? For God's sake spare this man further embarrassment and edit his work for him. Or at least tell him not to write when he's pissed.
Gary Cartwright, Indem Group, European parliament, Brussels

Dutch Bollitix?
Dear Sprout
I normally purchase your semi-witty publication in Amsterdam, but was shocked by your last edition. You seem to be running an anti-women campaign as the article by Mr Bloom was outrageous. As a Dutchman, I'm not supposed to have understood English humour, but what also caught my attention though was the contents page which suggested that your readers should 'slap' Lousewies van der Laan. Your magazine is not funny.
M. Pieters,
The Hague

Bloom, you missed the point about the causes of prostitution!
Dear Mr. Bloom
 I found great pleasure in reading the commentary on page 14 of The Sprout (04, Feb/March 06) regarding prostitution. I am a Romanian citizen and, in this quality, I must say that we are, probably more than any EU country, exposed to much more news about prostitution. From here, one can see there are two types of prostitution, depending on how the girls enter in it, and also on what role their will plays in this process. On one hand, "the good prostitution" - based on demand and offer, clean, discreet; on the other hand, unfortunately, we find the girls who have been forced in this... I don't know about EU, but here, every once in a while, you read some news concerning one or two husbands who sell their wives to pimps for amounts as little as 500 EUR; then, the "entrepreneurs" promise the women to offer them decent jobs in, say, Italy, and the next thing you know, there are more prostitutes in the E.U. It's about simple people from villages, with little education and poor knowledge of what is outside the county limits. (Don't say they deserve their fate, for having chosen such stupid and malevolent husbands!)
 Going back to your article, I strongly disagree with "very few men indeed seek an unwilling bed mate", the problem's point of weight is placed somewhere else; you must imagine that a woman taken from her village and brought in a place where she does not speak the language and know anyone except the pimp (they develop a love-hate relationship, by the way: she is miserable having to prostitute, but she can't go away because he's the only thing closest to a friend) is unwilling for a period of time, but afterwards she just gives up and goes with the flow... 
 "In short, most girls do it because they want to". Yes. Let's go deeper into where their acceptance comes from, before pointing fingers.  Criminalizing both the woman and the client would not bring a solution to the issue - unnecessary victims on both sides.
    As you said, keeping a closer control on organized crime and especially trans-frontier criminality would seriously reduce the number of victims of the second category of women selling their services described above, as much as the number of victims of other types of crime with the same authors.
 Although, in your comment, you could have paid more attention to the status of women in the prostitution business in the E.U., your concern is noteworthy and I hope you will be able to make a point in the Women's Rights and Gender equality committee. 
Ilinca Ruxandra Nistor
Bucharest

Leave press officers alone�
I used to be a press officer for a local government in the UK years ago and I thought your attacks on press officers in the Feb/March edition were just gratuitous. Who cares if a Ukip press officer is a pathological liar (particularly if he is now working for the shadow foreign affairs minister)? And was it really fair to call the Lib Dem one a 'wanker'? Perhaps it is the editor who is the one spending too much time caressing his own temperament?
Name and address withheld

No diplo immunity!
says MEP
Thank you for your invitation to correct inaccurate detail in the piece concerning me in the November/December edition.  
   The assistant to whom the piece referred was made redundant following a review of my office necessitated by the reduction in the number of UK Labour MEPs after the 2004 European elections.  She was, in fact, given the opportunity to be the sole interviewee for a new post established as a result of this review, but declined to be considered. The redundancy was carried out according to contractual obligations and the assistant has had full trade union representation throughout.
In conclusion, since the case is currently going through the Labour Courts in Belgium, I have clearly not claimed parliamentary immunity from legal proceedings.
Mary Honeyball MEP

Can I kill Bob Atkins?

Dear Sprout
I was shocked to read of the untimely death of Sir Robert Atkins MEP in your obituary column (Sprout November/Dec). I now work in government but knew of Sir Robert from years back and it upset me very much to hear of his murder on the steps of the European parliament. But I am curious about Belgian law though. If I were to take residency there and to miraculously meet Mr Atkins, then, presumably I couldn�t be prosecuted - under double-indemnity laws - of bumping off the pompous old fart? Just a thought.
�Philip�
Department of Works and Pensions
London