Until recently, people would blanch, shake with fear or run screaming if I mentioned nuclear energy. Now there are politicians rending their togas and donning sackcloth-and-ashes and hysterical people fearing that BNP “ogres” are going to eat their children. And why?

Because two BNP members were elected to the European Parliament.

Take heart and apply just a little rationality. This was not a British General Election – that will be a different affair.

As for the MEPs, the extreme right can muster only 44 votes. Out of a parliament of 736, that is pretty small beer.

When Nigel Farage expressed his delight at the performance of his UKIP, he announced that they would field 500 candidates at the next General Election.

This will bleed away many votes from the Conservatives and only a tiny number from elsewhere. The result, my prediction, will be a Labour Government with a minimum working majority of 28.

So, if you really wish to worry, then worry about that, because this country cannot afford it.

D M LOXLEY, Pickering