EU extravagance

The EU 'need' a larger headquarters and back in 2004 they ordered one. Now the plans have been made public and at a time when national governments and more importantly ordinary people across the EU are having to tighten belts, our EU masters have no such plans.

The design was presented to David Cameron and the other EU leaders at a summit in a brochure rumoured to have cost £100,000 itself. The building is budgeted to cost £280 Million; I bet it costs more.

What a waste? Of course. But whilst the Euro collapses alongside Greece, the EU-philes are still out there, indeed Tony Blair has lifted his snout just long enough to talk up the EU on this morning's Politics Show. The oh so pro EU BBC are already reporting what he said thus:

'Former prime minister Tony Blair has said there might still be a case for the UK joining the euro in the future.

He told the BBC he did not agree with people who argued joining would be a disaster, but there had to be a compelling economic case for doing so.

He said he believed the euro would eventually resolve its problems and the case for Britain joining may become "compelling ... at a certain point".

David Cameron said it would be a "dreadful idea" for Britain to join.

The prime minister, in Brussels for an EU summit where Greece's debt crisis is among items on the agenda, said: "Britain is out of the euro - I think we will stay out of the euro and certainly as long as I am doing this job there is no prospect of Britain even contemplating joining the euro."

...

Mr Blair told BBC One's Politics Show, in an interview to be broadcast on Sunday, he had backed the idea of Britain joining the euro when he came to power - but had accepted that the conditions had to be right.

...

"Now I don't actually take the view that some people take, that Britain joining the euro, in the past or now, will be a disaster. However I always said, unless you can make a compelling case for it economically you were never going to win a referendum on it.

"And the case for Britain joining isn't compelling. Now it may become that at a certain point."

...

Mr Blair said the problems with the eurozone were "fundamental" and there had to be changes - to align fiscal and monetary policy across the single currency area, and to make changes in those countries with problems.

"If people are retiring in their 50s on large salaries in the public sector, in circumstances where, in the end, you know, life has changed, demography has changed, people are living longer and so on - at some point you've got to reform."

But he said he did not think the euro would collapse, adding that the logistics of recreating individual currencies were "immense".

"For Europe, no I don't think they're going to give up the single currency. Now that's not to say there aren't huge issues to do with how you get through the next months." '

I presume that The Politics Show will not question Tony Blair too hard about his enthusiasm for the Euro. Questions like 'would the UK be better off now if it had joined the euro?' will not be asked. Questions like 'does monetary and fiscal union mean that political union is inevitable?' will also not be asked.

The BBC is pro-Labour and pro-EU, so Tony Blair will have got an easy ride this morning and this anti-Labour and anti-EU NotaSheep will not raise my blood pressure by watching the interview...