DEJA VU ALL OVER AGAIN?

"No taxation without representation" began as a slogan for the British colonists in the 13 colonies of the USA in the late 1700s. They believed that the lack of direct representation in the distant British Parliamnent was an illegal denial of their fundamental rights as Englishmen and therefore the laws taxing them as colonists and other laws applying to the colonies were unconstitutional.

I think it might be tomorrow evening that leaders of the 27 nations in the European Union will sit down amid the splendour of the taxpayer funded Brussels HQ and enjoy a lavish taxpayer funded bit of haute cuisine whilst at the same time conspiring among themselves as to who might become the unelected but taxpayer funded President of the EU Council. There have been dark mutterings that the case for Tony Blair to be handed the job has been gathering pace, although I suspect that might simply be because of the lack of an acceptable alternative. Surely there must be an an alternative more acceptable than the grandstanding, self-serving, warmongeringly less than careful with the actualite, discredited former Prime Minister.

One of those alternatives is apparently a guy named Rompuy from Belgium, who wants to see the introduction of a Europe-wide tax on the 500million who make up the Union. It may also be Rompuy - although it is certainly one of the many job seekers putting themselves forward - who wants to ban national flags and symbols and replace them all with the EU flag on anything from car number plates to passports.

Now, I`ve never been asked to vote for a President, but it looks like I`m going to get one. I`ve never agreed to daft tokenism like flags and symbols and I`ve never agreed to so much of my money being swallowed up by the largely unaccountable EU, who on the subject of accountability hasn`t had its own accounts signed off for years. I`ve discovered just how much money is going from this country to the EU and it`s frightening. In net terms alone, during the 90 minutes when Southampton take on Norwich City on Saturday, £1,113,000 will have departed to the EU, never to be seen again. For each of those 90 minutes, £12,366 will have left; £206.11 for each second. And the next second....and the next....and on and on and on it goes.

Now, aspiring President Rompuy wants to tax us even more without even being elected. And people wonder why I wanted a referendum! Britain is becoming more and more a distant colony of Brussels and whilst I accept that my attitudes to most things these days may belong to a different age, little wonder I sometimes feel I`m back in the 1700s! Pass the laudanum!!