EU corruption scandal

I wish I could tell you that the practice is confined to continentals, but as far as I can establish a clear majority of British MEPs also employ immediate family members. In fact, we're rather famous for it. A French MEP once remarked: "What is it about you English? You employ your wives, and you sleep with your staff."

Let me add immediately that many Euro-wives are conscientious assistants who deserve every penny they get. But the point is that they don't need to be: no one ever checks. The Court of Auditors did once try to establish who the MEPs were employing - colleagues still shudder at the memory - but no one has ever asked whether these employees earn their salaries.

The sums involved make Westminster look positively Lilliputian. Our staff allowance is €12,305 (£8,620) a month - enough to employ a genuine secretary, and a research assistant, and still have 50 or 60 grand left over for the missus.

The idea of auditing any of these expenses strikes many Euro-MPs as sacrilegious - "an assault on the dignity of our office" as an Italian friend grandly put it. So everything is done on the basis of no receipts, no invoices. The most outrageous case is the travel allowance, whereby MEPs get the equivalent of a full fare plus 20 per cent regardless of how they actually make the journey. If you're prepared to fly Ryanair from Stansted, you can easily trouser £600 a week - tax free, of course, since it counts as expenses, not income.

The same applies to our "general expenses allowance" (£2,540 a month) which is meant to cover petrol, postage and the like, but which several members find convenient to have paid directly into their current accounts.

Ditto the £180 daily attendance rate. In theory, this is meant to pay for accommodation and meals. But most of us have flats in Brussels, and you can always sub-let a room to your assistant for a surprisingly high rate which you happen to make up to him through your staff allowance. This would allow you to keep another £900 a week in more or less clear profit. (Forget paying for meals: whenever you're hungry, you just stretch out your arm and hail a passing lobbyist.)

Why am I telling you all this? It certainly won't make me many friends. When I touched on the expenses system once before, I was sent to Coventry - or "sent to Limoges", as amused French MEPs called it. But I feel that it is important to look at the practice of Europe, not just the theory.