Letter: Politically correct shopping will save our bacon

MY WIFE'S crusade started during the Falklands War when Argentine corned beef got the chop from the shopping list. This was followed by Chilean wine because of the regime there, then Brazilian goods because of the street children. French goods got the bullet in the so-called lamb war.

Chinese goods were banned because of their trade restrictions and South African because of apartheid, even Japanese goods because 'they won't buy ours'. The discriminating shopping had its effect on my wine-drinking habits. I whiled away the late hours with wines from New Zealand, Australia and Germany.

With the coming of democracy in eastern Europe, positive discrimination introduced wines from Bulgaria, Romania, Czechoslovakia and Hungary. Yugoslavia enjoyed a brief appearance but is back on the banned list. Now she has banned German wine because we were booted out of the ERM. 'We chose to leave the ERM,' I pleaded. 'We did not have a choice,' she retorted. 'We should be buying British anyway,' she said. 'How can we expect jobs if we keep buying foreign goods. If the housewives in Britain thought like me we could have chucked out the Germans instead.'

Gingham Taylor

Hull, South Humberside