The EU's threat to freedom.

My wife returned home yesterday from the UK. Unlike her outward journey late last month which was delayed by seven hours, the trip went smoothly. Meanwhile, the oleaginous Lawson has added his not inconsiderable weight, figuratively if no longer literally, to the chorus demanding an immediate referendum on Britain's membership of the EU. Unsurprisingly his his beef with the EU is its perceived threat to the City, that same City whose deregulation under his Chancellorship in the eighties led, after an initial boom, to inflation rising from 3% to more than 8%, and interest rates doubling to 15% in the space of eighteen months. And we're all still living with the financial misery consequent on the banking industry's further deregulation in the first decade of the twenty-first century. How dare the EU attempt to restrict the bankers' freedom to line their own pockets at the expense of the rest of us!

  It's not only the City which is under attack. I tried to claim compensation from Ryan Air for my wife's delayed flight. Searching the web for advice, I was led to a site which supplied a claim form and advice on how to proceed. Guess who was guilty of this blatant attempt to restrict O'Leary's freedom to rip off the public? None other than that self- same EU.          

   Knowing that it was likely that Ryan Air would use 'extraordinary circumstances' as an escape clause, further searches led me to discover two cases - Wallentin-Hermann and Sturgeon - where the European Court of Justice ruled that technical problems with an aircraft did not constitute 'extraordinary circumstances' and found in favour of the plaintiffs. Yet more meddling by the EU - little wonder big business is doing its best to remove the UK from its clutches, using the Mail and Sun to misdirect the public's wrath, and fear of Ukip to pressurise the government.

   Needless to say, my two faxes to Ryan Air whilst receiving fairly prompt responses didn't produce any dosh. I'm fairly sure that if I could afford to take the company to court I'd win. But I can't;  and if I could, the £250 to which I'd be entitled would be so insignificant that I wouldn't bother.

   And that's the system the Mail, the Sun and Ukip have sold to the public - it's enough to make the angels weep.