GIVEN the chance to save £150m at a stroke there isn't one government on the planet which would not grab it with both hands. Right?

Wrong. How about the 27 governments which make up the European Union, among them Greece, Ireland and Portugal, who are on their uppers, and the likes of Romania, Bulgaria and Estonia, who never had any uppers in the first place?

Although, to be fair, that figure's really 26 because dear little Belgium's been muddling along without a government at all since June 13 last. But that's another story.

Back to that £150m and there's no logical, logistical, environmental or financial reason why once a month 736 MEPs, 3,000 bureaucrats, and 25 lorries bearing 4,000 filing cabinets, travel from Brussels to Strasbourg or vice versa, ironically churning out a mind boggling 20,000 tons of CO2 emissions each time.

Now even 91% of MEPs,