Professor Congdon & Nigel Farage & The Unpublished Telegraph Letter.

Sir – Roland Rudd (Letters, November 28) may fancy himself as a cheerleader for Tony Blair in Blair’s ambition to become president of the European Union, but he is not good at elementary arithmetic and ought to do his homework better.

He says that our contribution to the EU budget accounts for one per cent of GDP or ‘about £15 per person’. According to the most recent national accounts data (published on September 27 by the Office for National Statistics), ‘money GDP’ was £1,519.1 billion in 2011. One per cent of that is about £15.2 billion. An official figure for the UK’s population last year is not yet available, but it was for 62.3 million in mid-2010 and a number like 62.7 million looks reasonable for 2011.

If £15.2 billion is divided by 62.7 million, the answer is £242, not £15. We look forward to continuing the debate with Mr. Rudd (and indeed Mr. Blair) on the UK’s membership of the EU, but would ask them to play fair with the readers of The Daily Telegraph and the British public. Enthusiasts for EU membership have repeatedly deceived the British people about its true costs. They might in future have the courtesy to check the numbers and get their facts straight.

Nigel Farage

Leader, UK Independence Party

Professor Tim Congdon CBE

Economics Spokesman, UKIP

The Daily Telegraph happily published a silly letter, with an absurd under-estimate of the per head cost of the EU, from an individual like Mr. Rudd. The letter blatantly promoted Tony Blair, with whom Mr. Rudd may (or may not) have a mutually beneficial business relationship. But The Daily Telegraph did not take a letter from the leader of UKIP and its economics spokesman to correct a ludicrous blunder in that letter.

Again, what does one say?