Better late than never

So the party of 'spend, spend, spend' has finally woken up to the fact that we are giving far too much to the EU in these times of austerity. Either that or Labour just wanted a stick to beat David Cameron with because they are not known for being either prudent (and Calton is using the word in its true, pre-Brown sense) or anti-EU. Whatever the reason for their vote today it's better late than never. The EU budget is out of control and the British taxpayer is the loser. What Calton can't quite get his head round is a Conservative Government being defeated by Labour and its own backbenchers for not being tough enough on Europe. Extraordinary. Times are certainly changing.

Norwegian satire

The Norwegians must be having a laugh - awarding the Nobel Peace Prize to the EU in a week which has seen French fishermen chucking half bricks at UK fishing boats and demonstrations in Greece against the German Chancellor Angela Merkel. Satire may have died when the prize was awarded to Henry Kissinger but, if so, it has had a miraculous resurrection. Ironically, Norway is not a part of the EU. If it were, perhaps its government would not be so quick to praise that most undemocratic of institutions for 'advancing democracy'. As for 'peace and reconciliation', tell that to our fishermen. Their job is dangerous enough without a barrage of missiles to contend with. Tell it to the Greeks, whose economy has shrunk by 25% under German-imposed austerity measures. There may not have been a pan-European war since 1945 but the shadows of the last one are all too present in the current Greek crisis. We would do well to remember that the cause of WWII was the punitive reparations forced on Germany at the end of WWI.