I've
just returned from a very brief speaking trip to Brussels and experienced the
familiar fury I feel whenever I have misfortune of being there. The
sanitised hotels seem to be the only businesses in town other than the
Parliament.
My
post-Brussels fury meant I was even more bowled over than normal by the
realisation - highlighted here
by the Taxpayers' Alliance's Mark Wallace - that although in the wake of
the emergency Budget most government departments are quite rightly going to
have to aim for a 25 per cent cut in the next four years, our contributions to
the EU will, wait for it ... rise! As Wallace says:
Even after taking into account the money that the EU graciously
gives back to us (which is often misspent),
the amount we pour into Brussels is going to grow from £6.4bn last year, to
£8.3bn this year and then goes on to peak at an eye-watering £10.3bn in
2014-15.
By any measure this is a disgrace. Does nobody in the Coalition feel that Brussels might be able to do with at least a freeze on our contributions? If there were any Conservatives in this Lib Dem government, perhaps that question would have come up.
