TimTim Lund wrote:Peter:
Why doesn't UKIP make more of its local (SE England) MEP, the awkward accountant, Marta Andreasen - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marta_Andreasen? I want political parties to explain what is really going on, and boring though it may be, accountancy helps.
Your message is amazingly timely. I did not know about this until I happened to be looking for something on the UKIP website.
On Wednesday Marta was in Strasbourg and spoke about the EU accounts being approved by the EU when their auditors were dissatisfied with 90% of it. This is the 16th year running this has happened. Personally I find it interesting that Marta was in Strasbourg fighting for European taxpayers when most other UK MEPs were in the UK helping their parties with the General Election. That is the sort of dedication that Marta has.
You might have missed the huge media coverage of a UK MEP trying to protect the UK taxpayers money. Or, like me you missed it because there was no media coverage. UKIP produced a press release on that speech on Thursday (http://www.ukip.org/content/latest-news ... gain-marta) and I certainly have not seen any media coverage of the UKIP press release.
So perhaps you can see the problem that UKIP faces in trying to even start a debate on the EU. Sometimes the media are worse than the politicians.
You can view the European Parliament debate on the European Parliament TV Channel. The url is very long so I have shortened it for you (http://tinyurl.com/y8sp4se).
In case people do not know the European Parliament is not like Westminster. Its members have virtually no powers. Yet each MEP costs around £2 million per year.
Peter Staveley