£100million fiddle - Peanuts to Euro MPs

IT will come as no surprise to my legion of Europhobic readers that an invesitagtion has been launched into the fraudulent use of taxpayers' cash by Euro MPs - no less than £100million of it!

That it's a Liberal Democrat who has blown the whistle may cause eyebrows to be raised - after all the Lib Dems are generally enthusiastic for a federal EU and blow raspberries at the Tories and UK Independence Party.

Lib Dem MEP Chris Davies describes the as "outrageous" and is behind the EU's independent investigation team being called in. "This report is dynamite - and makes the Derek Conway affair at Westminster look like small-change.''

Having seen the report as a member of the European Parliament's Budget Control Committee, he has revealed that the auditors' have compiled a catalogue of alleged abuses of payments for MEPs' office staff. The total involved is about £100 million for the audited period between late 2004 and early 2006.

Fiddling expenses is seen by many as a perk of the job - what's an extra couple of miles added to a jounrey? But when public servants fiddle payments to their office staff of a total of £100million, then should face prosecution and suspension until they're acquitted of any wrong doing.