PRIME Minister and Witney MP David Cameron has scored an ‘own goal’ by involving politics in sport by lambasting FIFA for its decision to allow no member country to wear any article or symbol that it deems as unacceptable by being a religious/political statement.

Mr Cameron says this nation prides itself as a role model of democracy and being told what to do by organisations outside of this sceptered isle is not a matter the British public take lightly! Indeed, The Duke of Cambridge has broken protocol by penning a ‘strongly worded letter’ about the subject to FIFA himself.

Oddly enough, being involved in local football, I agree with what FIFA was actually trying to do. Controlled emotion is, I agree, a strong way to express yourself, but as a torrent and unchecked, it’s so much harder to deal with. Emotion shouldn’t ever really be allowed to outweigh calculated thought for what FIFA might face from other ‘irresponsible’ nations in the future, should it?

On the plus side, as Mr Cameron has at least now publicly alluded to the fact that British people are grown up, responsible, and able to make decisions for themselves, I’d ask him – I’m sure he scours the Oxford Mail – will we all, then, soon be having poll cards dropping onto our doormats, inviting us to vote in a referendum regarding our membership of the EU?

I’d say free trade is good, sir, but governance? No thank you. Ask the Scottish and Cornish fishermen. They’ll explain what I mean in detail, probably as they’re throwing half their catch back to the gulls! For myself, I wear a poppy with thanks rather than national pride.

I wear it because I want to, not because I feel as if I have to. Having to wear one surely goes against what it, the poppy, represents.

DAVID WILLIAMS David Walter Close Oxford