Please Sack Me.

If you have not had the chance to read Danniel Hannans excellent book, there is still time to order it.  You can get a copy for for just over £4 and delivered within 2 days from Wordery on Amazon.

'Powerful, intelligent, hard-hitting, well-written ... absolutely required reading for every Briton who is considering voting on 23 June' said Andrew Roberts, a Visiting Professor at the Department of War Studies,King's College London.

And Daniels opening remarks are a bold request, Please Sack Me. The following is a taster of what he has to say:

"I still remember my utter, nerveless shock. It was my first day in Brussels as a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) and, having found my office and done the basic tour, I was invited to hand in my plane ticket for reimbursement. 

When I saw the sum that I was being given, I assumed that there had been some mistake. 

‘No, no,’ I told the helpful lady, ‘I’ve just come from Heathrow.’

‘No mistake, Monsieur,’ she replied brightly. ‘That’s the kilometrage rate from London.’

‘But it can’t be. I mean, there’s no way anyone could spend that sum travelling here from London.’

‘That’s right, Monsieur, that’s how the rate is calculated.’ She went on to explain that, when MEPs travel from their constituencies to one of the two parliamentary locations (the European Parliament meets, at vast expense, in both Brussels and Strasbourg), they are reimbursed on the basis of the priciest notional fare, plus an extra ‘time and distance allowance’. 

Even if you really did travel at the top business class fare, you would make a tidy sum. 

But if you were prepared to fly EasyJet, you could trouser the better part of £800 pounds a week – tax-free, because it counted as expenses rather than income. 

The next desk belonged to the ‘general expenses’ official.  He explained that we were entitled to nearly £3,500 a month as a bloc grant. ‘What, you mean to rent an office with?’ 

‘No, no, we give you offices in Brussels and in Strasbourg.’ 

‘For computers and equipment, then?’ 

‘No, you get that, too. It’s for other incidental expenses like postage and petrol.’ 

‘Seriously? Three-and-a-half grand a month?’ 

‘As I say, sir, it’s an unconditional grant. You don’t have to submit receipts. You just nominate which bank account it goes into.’ 

After him was the staff adviser.  It turned out that we would get more than €12,000 a month to hire people. Which is, if you think about it, more than enough to take on a secretary, a researcher and a press officer, and still have a large dollop left over for your wife."

You can see where Daniel is going with this.  His experience right from the outset is that the EU is not there for people like you and me.  It is made for the people who work there.  The potential for corruption exists from the moment someone engages with the EU.  

Is this really the sort of club you want to be a member of?  

Buy the book.  Read it.  Then let's sack Daniel.