It goes on

The Scotsman has picked up the batton of reporting on the ongoing Barroso affair. In a piece by Geoff Meade taken off the AP wire it relates the latest developements with, as far as I can see only a couple of minor errors.

"the censure debate will happen on the eve of a knife-edge French decision on whether to back the EU’s new Constitution is an added bonus for UKIP.

“Mr Barroso only has himself to blame” said Mr Farage. “If he and the Commission had not repeatedly refused to answer a simple Parliamentary Question then none of this need to have happened. Now we will have the opportunity to force the Commission to come clean about its conflicts of interest“.
He went on: “All we want is full disclosure. It is unacceptable for the Commission to continue to police itself now we have discovered their inability to act appropriately over gifts.

“The taxpayer deserves better. The approach from Mr Barroso so far has, I believe, shown him and the Commission at their worst – out of touch, off hand, and anti-democratic.

“His refusal to answer a question posed by an MEP because he found it personally inconvenient was quite disgraceful.”

The leaders of the centre-right European Peoples Party, Socialist Group, Liberals and Greens have now pitched in, with a statement declaring: “As chairs of of our political groups, which account for 597 of the 732 members of the European Parliament, we express our opposition to the motion of censure.

"We consider this initiative to be unjustified and disproportionate and principally designed to seek publicity for its authors.”

Mr Farage retorted: “Their comments are sadly as one would expect.
“With the authority that is vested in them by their electorates also comes a responsibility to hold the executive to account, this seems to be a responsibility that they wish to shirk“.

He claimed the statement was only made after efforts to arm-twist MEPs into taking their names off the list failed.

Tonight the UKIP leader was still prepared to drop the censure motion if Mr Barroso announces the introduction of a Commission policy of “full disclosure”.

But Mr Farage said: “If Mr Barroso fails to turn up (for the censure debate), if he fails to explain how the Commission okayed a 10 million grant to his holiday host, and if he fails to instigate a policy of full disclosure, then he will be shown to hold the position of elected members in contempt“.