Facing the possibility that no budget deal will be agreed at the European Council 15-16 December, the UK Presidency has woken up to the fact that the European Parliament should also agree to any deal. The response – complaining about their democratic mandate!

From this article from EUObserver:
"Own resources has always been solely up to member states. It’s the taxpayer who pays […] The European Parliament is not a parliament that can sustain a government, much less make demands on revenue" – so said Jack Straw. Who the hell votes for their national parliaments / governmenys according to what they are going to give to the EU budget? No-one. So stop whining.

And then Douglas Alexander has weighed in with this one, stating that citizens would react with "misapprehension" if a poltical deal ended up being sunk by an "interinstitutional wrangle." Sorry, but the useless wrangle we are in now is between some grumpy member states not willing to cough up a bit of extra cash.

Quite frankly what Straw and Alexander are saying here is a load of drivel. They are in a corner as they have proposed a useless budget deal, and they know that seen from Brussels there is no logical defence of their position. So like all politicians, they just start to get in a strop.

The sooner this budget mess ends, and we get proper EU taxation, the better!