It's a truth universally acknowledged...

The swivel-eyed loons and assorted nutters of hate have been on full rant about this supposed 'Nigel Farage claiming £2 million in expenses' without seeking to qualify it.

There are two reasons for this, I suppose.

1) They don't understand (this itself can be expanded)
2) They don't care because they just want to push their negative messages

Nigel Farage made that statement at a debate at the Foreign Press Association in order to open up the debate again about MEP expenses and how much Brussels costs this country. The £2 million figure being thrown around as an example of 'snouts in the trough' is a combination of about 7 other people's salaries over the last 10 years, not just his, along with travel and office expenses.

Yes, MEPs cost the tax payer a huge amount of money because on top of their salary (the same as a British MEP) they get paid for traveling to Brussels and Strasbourg and staying over night. This is going to cost more than travelling around Britain although the system still allows for people to claim an amount far more than their ticket.

For MEPs who change their ticket because they make speeches, visit schools or need to actually change their plans because they don't just sit around eating, this also means that they can end up worse off.

It's a truth which should be universally acknowledged that the harder an MEP works, the worse off he will be.

I don't know of many MEPs who don't live in their constituency apart from Richard Corbett who I was told has a house in Antwerp. They get given the amount of a business class fare, an allowance for signing in and money to run their constituency office and pay their staff. That goes through an agent - or it's supposed to but events of last year proved that that wasn't always the case.

Also what the loons either don't realise or don't care to include in their nonsense is that, for example, the constituency of an MEP for the South East of England is bigger than most countries in the EU. It is represented by 10 MEPs and is tremendously difficult to get around. I don't know how they came up with it but most people would realise that Oxfordshire and Kent aren't very similar or particularly close.

No doubt there's some idea that the more detached people are from their MEPs then the more the EU can just push ahead, but for someone like Farage and decent MEPs like Hannan who make the effort to keep their constituents informed it's a mammoth task.

Not that I expect facts to get in the way of an ill informed, inaccurate rant by Libertas and their ilk. In my eyes they are bringers of doom and misery who haven't realised that there is no niche in the UK political spectrum for their views as they are covered by the Tory party. By this I mean saying no to Lisbon but staying inside the EU and not being independent.

They also don't appear to understand economics but I am happy to give lessons in international trade for people who think that we need to be part of a political union to trade with countries.

I find it deeply concerning that these people want to stand for a parliament but I suppose they're no different from the MPs in Westminster who think that we need to be part of the EU.

For my part, I suppose I must just have more faith in people to think that we should be an independent country with a proper democracy.