CATHY COME HOME.

It`s all going swimmingly well for Britain`s Baroness Cathy Ashton (pictured) who has now been in the job as the EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy for 100 days. As one leading MEP puts it: 'Last year, she was unknown in Britain. Today, she is unknown all over Europe.' And others have been yet more scathing of her `performance` since she rose without trace to this new, unelected post, with one insider claiming that maybe her rightful place in the political firmament would be to chair a Parish Council.

Yet the peer, who is planning to use an appearance at the European Parliament next week to confront her critics, can take comfort from the fact she is riding the gravy train for all it's worth. Her basic pay of £250,000 is double that of her U.S. counterpart, Hillary Clinton (who's on £124,000). And on top of that, Lady Ashton is entitled to a raft of benefits including a £38,000 yearly accommodation allowance, £10,000 annual entertainment budget, two chauffeurs, and thousands of pounds more in allowances. If - and it is a very big if - she survives her five-year term, there will be a gold-plated £64,000 annual pension and a £464,000 golden handshake.

The personal benefits are only the beginning of the cost to the taxpayer of Baroness Ashton's new empire. Millions of pounds of taxpayers' money will be lavished on a new Brussels HQ. But that is small change compared with the estimated £43billion cost of the 5,000-strong team of civil servants in the newly formed European External Action Service, which has been set up to serve her.

The unelected and unaccountable European Commission has thrown money at Baroness Ashton in a desperate attempt to make the appointment work. But still her name barely resonates in Brussels despite serving as EU Trade Commissioner for more than 12 months before she took the new post.

In fact, she is so anonymous that security guards reportedly asked for her ID when she tried to enter the EU building during the summit of the 27 leaders which appointed her. It`s all very embarrassing but all so very EU, where the blatant disregard for the people of Europe, for the basic principles of democracy and for the decency to spend taxpayers` money as if it was their own is endemic. The whole thing is institutionally self-serving and nothing and no-one demostrates this more than Baroness Ashton`s unelected rise from provincial NHS Trust to her now exalted position.

Come home, Cathy, before it`s too late.