The European Commission has just published its clumsily named "Recommendation for a Council recommendation on the United Kingdom's national reform programme".
In this, it gives its advice on how we can improve our economic situation. (These are, of course, the people who think that the single currency is a good idea.)
After a general condemnation of the British system, the Commission offers vague suggestions on how we can improve things, with its usual hostility to our financial services sector – of which they are very jealous – shining through as always.
But wait! The Commission does offer one solution to all our woes – we should pay more VAT!
I should point out here that the EU is obsessed with developing its own income stream from taxation. VAT is one way of doing this, and the much discussed Financial Transaction Tax (FTT) is another. The FTT could have actually been strangled at birth at committee stage. Sadly, it was passed by just one vote. If a vote results in a tie, it is deemed to be a rejection. One more vote could have finished the FTT off there and then. But one MEP was missing at the time of the vote. Who was it? It was a UKIP MEP, who single-handedly failed to stop the EU's Financial Transaction Tax.
Most of us are expected to turn up for work, but apparently that does not apply to UKIP MEPs.
