The Cornwall county council press office - renowned for plaguing journalists with millions of words of useless gobbledegook - has invited the local media to support Europe Week by publishing a quiz "to promote interest and attention amongst your readers, listeners and viewers."
Quite why staff at County Hall - paid for by Cornish taxpayers - should be wasting their time on such trivia I do not know unless, of course, their Liberal Democrat masters have instructed them to tow the party line and help brainwash the public at large into believing that the European Union is the best thing since sliced bread.
In addition to the quiz, the county council is also planning a series of roadshows and events "promoting the European Union and European Funding" - paid for with your money at a time when vital public services are being axed to balance the books.
Well, I'm afraid that I won't be helping the council to spread EU propaganda. They can do that themselves when Pravda - the council's own newspaper - is finally launched (or have they bowed to public pressure and ditched this ridiculous idea?).
Instead, I'm going to give you a quiz of my own. It's much easier than the council one and you should be able to get at least 50% of the answers right even if you guess them. You simply have to answer yes or no to the following questions:
* Is it true that the "EU money" being pumped into Cornwall comes from British taxpayers and represents a tiny fraction of the billions of pounds handed to Brussels by our government each year?
* Is it true that billions of pounds of British taxpayers' money - far more than we receive back from the EU - is being used to improve the standard of living of people in many other European countries?
* Is it true that if we didn't give billions of pounds of British taxpayers' money to Brussels there would be even more available to invest in Cornish schools, hospitals, roads, police and the fire brigade?
* Is it true that EU red tape is strangling British businesses and stifling enterprise?
* Is it true that millions of pounds of our money handed over to Brussels is siphoned off every year by corrupt officials and that auditors have refused to sign-off the EU's accounts for the last ten years?
* Is it true that tens of thousands of useless, interfering bureaucrats are employed by the EU and that we pay for their lavish lifestyles through our taxes?
* Is it true that the aim of many high-ranking EU officials is to eventually govern all member countries from Brussels (a similar aim, in fact, to Adolf Hitler's although he wanted Berlin to be the capital)?
* Is it true that most British politicians support the EU because they see it as a gravy train that they can jump onto when they lose their jobs at Westminster?
* Is it true that the British public voted to join the Common Market because they believed it was a European trading partnership and not a step towards European federal government?
* Is it true that the Labour party promised a referendum before handing even further powers to Brussels but is now about to renege on that promise?
If you have answered "no" to more than two of these questions you must have a cabbage where your brain should be.
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