Euro-hyenas are no laughing matter!
By Quentin Letts
Last updated at 8:07 PM on 25th March 2011
Pro-Brussels peers behaved 'like a pack of hyenas' in the Lords this week when urged to declare strings-attached pensions they receive from the European Commission.
The peers, including the increasingly unseemly Neil Kinnock, ganged up on Ukip's Lord Pearson in an extraordinary manner.
Some shouted at the Ukip man, heckling him, sneering, scoffing and generally making him feel threatened.
'It was like a pack of hyenas coming in on one': Ukip's Lord Pearson was rounded on by Pro-Euro peers
Lord Pearson's 'crime'? All he did was ask why ex-Brussels Commissioners are not required to declare their fat EC pension loyalties before they make parliamentary speeches.
The crucial thing about these pensions is that they are 'forfeitable'.
That means they can be taken away if recipients criticise
Tuesday's debate on the European Union Bill was among the most visceral the House of Lords has known.
The Upper House may recently have been increasingly raucous, but what was unprecedented about Tuesday was the way a special-interest group (of supposedly dignified grandees) ganged up on an individual.
In effect, the Euro-bullies tried to silence Lord Pearson by vocal intimidation.
'It was like a pack of hyenas coming in on one,' says Lord Pearson, who felt that some of the 'outrageous' intimidation bordered on the 'fascist'.
He stuck to his guns, he says, because 'it was like skiing on ice — once you've started you need to keep going'.
Lord Pearson was treated so badly that he has since received letters of sympathy from colleagues across the political spectrum who were appalled by the Europhiles' conduct.
Ex-European Commissioners who made speeches in the debate were Lord Clinton-Davis (Lab), Lord Richard (Lab) and Eighties pin-up Lord Brittan (Con). Lord Clinton-Davis did admit to receiving some EC largesse, but airily said 'it is not a vast sum of money'.
Other (non-pensioned) Euro-whooper-doopers joining the 'pack of hyenas' included former Foreign Office panjandra Lords Hannay and Kerr, ex MEP Lord Tomlinson and sometime Ministers Lord Sewel and Lady Quin. Disgraceful.
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Why so coy, Lord Patten?
Another ex-European Commissioner is Lord (Chris) Patten, new chairman of the BBC.
I tried yesterday to ascertain if he has a forfeitable
A BBC spokesman says that only 'positions of employment and remunerated directorships' have to be declared.
Hmmm. Let it be stressed again. Former Commissioners' pensions are forfeitable.
That means there could be financial leverage over the recipient — potential squeezing of the windpipe.
We're talking about the chairman of the BBC here — head of a corporation already suspected of pro-European bias.
Lord Patten may be such a saint that he would never yield to such pressure. But he should have declared this potential interest.
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Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1370044/Euro-hyenas-laughing-matter.html#ixzz1HhhvNEEs
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