At the moment our revered leader, David Cameron, is attending a meeting of the European Council at which he is discussing, among other matters, the thorny question of the EU budget, the EU with perfect timing announces a ‘rebalancing’ of past contributions.

This is covered in the Financial Times, the Telegraph and the Mail, with varying degrees of hyperbole. In the Telegraph a Treasury official is quoted as saying that it is not acceptable to change the fees at a moments notice; and John Redwood in the Mail being quoted as saying that David Cameron should reject the idea and that we {the UK] hold all the cards as we raise the tax revenue in the UK and are responsible for spending it, continuing that this latest demand is unacceptable and illegal as far as the United Kingdom is concerned.

Perhaps the Treasury official concerned – and John Redwood – need to read Article 10, (4) to (7) of Council Regulation (EC, Euratom) No 1150/2000 of 22 May 2000 implementing Decision 2007/436/EC, on the system of the Union’s own resources?

Ineffectual bluster springs to mind as this ‘rebalancing’ requirement has been known about for sometime and coupled with the fact Cameron has been trumpeting how much better off the United Kingdom is in relation to other Member States, it does not take more than one brain cell to realise the UK was going to suffer a hit.

I sometimes wonder whether our political class undergo a total lobotomy on entering politics.