Dave has made an issue of transparency, promising that his expenses will all be made public and that he will insist on his MPs doing everything above board. The MEPs in Brussels, more used to the continental ways, are proving to be opaque and less than open about their dealings. 13 Tory MEPs have refused to make public their expenses. So public money is spent unaccountably by politicians who are supposed to be holding the EU Commission to account. Much of the cash is known to end up in the bank accounts of people close to the MEPs themselves.

The 13 Tory MEPs above did not answer questions posed by Open Europe’s Transparency Initiative. It gets worse, the leader of the Tory MEPs, Giles Chichester, has been caught paying £445,000 of public funds to a company of which at one time only he and his wife were remunerated directors.

That is an insurmountable conflict of interest. Even if, as is so often the way with political corruption, he faces no charges, he should at the very least be relieved of his position as Euro-Tory leader. David Cameron has publicly asked for “a full explanation and a detailed account of his Parliamentary expenses”. If it is not satisfactory or forthcoming, Chichester’s days on the Euro-gravy train are over…