It didn't happen, and if it did I wasn't there, and if I was I didn't know anything about it...

Jaques Barrot tonight sailed through the hearing on whether he should become the new Justice and Home Affairs Commissioner.

That of course can only be expected in the Strasbourg Parliament. There was however one dissenting voice, that of Derek Clark, the UKIP MEP for the East Midlands who, despite a foiled attempt to block him from speaking said,

"Mr President I understand that the present Commissioner for Transport is to be the new Commissioner for Justice.

But this gentleman was convicted of fraud and embezzlement of public funds in France and would have received a substantial prison sentence but the then French President granted amnesty. He failed to declare this situation before taking office.

This appointment would make him the second most powerful person in the EU with control over such matters as the seizure of terrorist funds and laws on environmental crime.

Fortunately the Lisbon Treaty is now defunct otherwise the holder of the Justice portfolio would have the power to dictate how member states operate criminal law, policing, the courts and rules of evidence.

In the current climate in which the financial probity of some colleague MEPs is in question, not to say the auditors once again refusing to sign off the EU books due to corrupt handling of funds, is this not a most untimely and inappropriate appointment?"

In response Mr Barrot said this,

"He had been examined by the legal services of both the Commission and of Parliament who had found nothing wrong.
He had no knowledge of personal corruption and had a clean bill of health.
He himself did not know of the complaint and had nothing to answer.

Which in the twisted world of the EU is indeed factually correct. But so were the words of Mr Clark. How to square this circle? Simple, apply French law and stir a few times.

An amnesty in France means that there was no offence in the first place, whatever it was did not occur, there is nothing to answer to. As a result no one in France may question the individual, there is no one to question, and the media are utterly forbidden to mention it in any way.

Thus no crime was committed and Mr Barrot does not speak with forked tongue... Of course.