Does it? I think current balance of payment to the EU is about £10Billion per year for the UK. Yes, that’s a large sum of money but it doesn’t represent a large percentage of government spending by any stretch of the imagination.

Still, I agree that the EU is pretty much out of control, with some shocking waste, and on its current course, unsustainable.

I don’t think I made any reference to it being any percentage of government spending. If we didn’t spend it we would have £10 more billions ( I thought it was £14 billion this year ) than we would otherwise have.

I would cheerfully support billions on new European buildings if it stops Europeans going to war with one another.

Do you really believe that or are you just offering a debating point? I didn’t think anyone still thought that there was the remotest chance of a European war, EU, or not.

I don’t see as a different discussion. It affects almost every aspect of our daily lives, and it represents a large percentage of our annual net expenditure. And it may have escaped your notice but we are still a member and so we are “on the inside” and a fat lot of good it does us. Our Prime Minister, to give him a modicum of credit, attempted to argue for a zero increase. Eventually he was fobbed-off by Merkel and Sarkozy to accept 2.9. We all know it will not end there – because it never does.

And I would endorse your last point if it only was “sort-of union bickering”. It isn’t. It is grandiose empire building by the few against the wishes of the majority. Who, given the choice, would vote for spending £6 billion on the new EU diplomatic service and who would endorse the new £280 million office HQ for Mr Rumpty Dumpty. It is scandalous.

That is true but it was really the Conservative 1957 Defence White Paper which did it for the RAF, wasn’t it? And didn’t the RAF turn down the Buccaneer at some stage in its development?

“The ONS report effectively means that we as a species are not economically viable.”

Precisely summarised. And what are we doing about it? Precisley nothing or at least nothing effective enough.

The other area which has been notably absent from our debate here but which is extremely relevant is Europe, our part in it, whether we like it or not, and the amount is costs us. I am astonished that although there is much carping about the parochial effects of our own cut-backs there has been no discernible concern that we are having to finance an increased eurobudget of at least 2.9% but which I will put money on being double that by the end of the year. We are also paying for a nice fat back-dated increase on the obscenely high salaries of our elected MEPs and the vast empire of unelected bureaucrats in Europe.

At a time when most European countries are facing reduced public spending, some a great deal more than others, it is nothing short of an outrage. And yet nothing changes and the whole edifice rumbles on.

We do not necessarily want more of these people. We want effective front line education, health, old-age care, policing and dare I say it, defence, and for that we need the fewest administrators and the best professionals to carry out each of these disciplines.

The whole way we run our public services needs to be reviewed and, over a generation, transformed. So that we can be sure that our money is being spent on our health, welfare, education and protection, and not on lining the purses of those contributing least to the end product.

The ONS produced a series of reports which I remembered had been extrapolated by the Independent. The attached makes for some food for thought!

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/britainrsquos-debt-the-untold-story-2025979.html

Yes, it probably could have been expressed more diplomatically, but the nub of it is in the last sentence. We will all have to do without some of our pleasures, and yes, poor people have them as well, and spend according to what we have available. It’s called budgetting, something which many families understand better than the previous government – although I appreciate that you do not accept that.