Bl 'EU' plaques

The European Parliament's Culture Committee have nooded through their latest attempt to forge the philospher's stone that is a single European memory. The latest vessels for this is what is called the European Heritage Label.

This is what they say,

a European Heritage Label, whose general objectives are to strengthen European citizens' sense of belonging to the European Union, based on shared elements of history and heritage, as well as an appreciation of diversity, and to strengthen intercultural dialogue. To this end the Label seeks to enhance the value and the profile of sites which have played a key role in the history and the building of the European Union, and to increase European citizens' understanding of the building of Europe, and of their common yet diverse cultural heritage, especially related to the democratic values and human rights that underpin the process of European integration. In this way the European Heritage Label would also help to bring citizens closer to Europe.

So what sort of places are they going to attach this thing to?

‘that a European heritage label should be established with a view to emphasising the European dimension of cultural goods, monuments, memorial sites, and places of remembrance, which all bear witness to Europe’s history and heritage’.

Places of Rememberance!! What! They are planning to stick a glossy label onto something like the Menin Gate and claim that the hundreds and thousands of British and Commonwealth troops died for that apogee of mankind's social developement, the European Union. Or will they instead attach the self same token to the walls of Auschwitz, claiming that the millions who dies in the holocaust died so that Herman van rompuy could skittle across the world stage?

Or maybe Ted Heath's house, so that generations of Englishmen can learn to hate him as the traitor that he was?

Update
The Telegraph picks up the story

Paul Nuttall, a Ukip MEP, accused the EU of wanting to impose its view of history on war sites such as the Menin Gate, which marks the 55,000 British and Commonwealth soldiers who died in the First World War fighting of the Ypres Salient but who have no known graves.

"As we come up to Remembrance Sunday it is outrageous to think that the EU might try and hijack the Menin Gate when in fact it commemorates the British and Commonwealth soldiers who died to protect our independence from Europe," he said.

"They are terrified that they do not own people's memory or history and are prepared to spend millions of pounds of our money to generate a new one."

Officials have also suggested that Sir Edward Heath, the former Conservative Prime Minister who took Britain into the European Community in 1971, could be commemorated along with Robert Schuman, the Frenchman who was one of the EU's "founding fathers".

"Imagine what a (European Heritage Label would do for a site like Hadrian's Wall or for Ted Heath's house – and the many small businesses, from youth hostels to hotels, that would benefit from increased tourism in the areas," said an official.

Of course, one must ask the pertinent question here. Which side of Hadrian's Wall are they thinking off? Do they have a problem with the Scots?

And as has already been mentioned in the comments, it is a little late for Ted Heath's stolen property, which due to intense lack of interest has had to be sold. The fact that it should be given back to the Dean and Chapter of Salisbury Cathedral from whom it was essentially stolen is neither here nor there.