‘SPANISH PM talks tough over Gibraltar’ is your headline (August 10).

The “dispute” which has flared up over allegations of damage to fishing grounds caused by Gibraltarian authorities following the creation of an artificial reef” concerns, according to the Rock’s perfectly legitimate representatives on whom – regardless of their ethnic origins, my money would always be – a single vessel.

This is obviously a red herring – ho, ho! – and a limp pretext for reintroducing the puerile, primitive, parochial issue of sovereignty in a way which has caused considerable inconvenience to the innocent. ‘Gib’ is indisputably ours as a result of the never-revoked Utrecht Treaties.

Moreover, well over 99 per cent of its inhabitants wish to remain unequivocally British, as do those of the Falkland – or Malvinas – Islands. It comes as no surprise whatsoever to learn that the “second-and-a-half-world” nation, Spain – should it even be in the EU? – and the Third World country, Argentina, are planning to join forces to reinforce their pathetic claims.

Would we be so silly over the legitimate forfeiture of the Scilly – or Sorlingas – Islands? “Dios los cría y ellos se juntan” – God creates them and they team up – or, if one prefers, birds of a feather flock together.

“Nada más” or, alternatively, I rest my case.

DAVID DIMENT, Riverside Court, Oxford