EXERCISING superb self control I refrained from public comment regarding the latest Lib Dem MEP debacle.

My halo hurtled to the ground on learning that Davies has benefited from Legal Aid at our taxpayers expense and sort clarification on his immunity from prosecution in Brussels. Any Eurosceptic would have told him that only the EU Commission and the members of Europol (European FBI) are granted immunity from prosecution. (Article 12, Chapter 5 of the Protocol on the Privileges and Immunities in the EU).

The very fact that any EU official enjoys immunity from prosecution should ring alarm bells in the UK. We mere mortals on the other hand will have a European Public Prosecutor (EPP) with "the power to imprison for six months without charge, renewable for a further three months without limit on the number of renewals"

(Corpus Juris, Art.20 Part 2, Criminal Procedures) Voted for in the European Parliament March 1999. Mr Davies apparently approves of innocent people being thrown into prison while for himself he prefers that he should be immune to prosecution even after committing a crime. What arrogance!

The Liberal democrats have embarked on a countrywide promotion for the next local elections and the 2004 Euro Elections. It is to be hoped that they will protect local council tax payers' money more effectively than EU taxpayers' contributions.

I refer to the ongoing financial corruption and cover up in the EU Commission (prosecution immunity remember).

The European Liberal Democrats in the European Parliament prepared a document in which they consider whether to call Ms Andreason (EU accountant whistleblower) for a public hearing in front of the European Parliament's Budgetary Control Committee.

At the end of this document is a peculiar section giving reasons why she should not appear, I quote: "If a public hearing goes ahead, whatever the result, Commission and Parliament may not emerge in a favourable light, it will make little difference to the progress of reform and will be used by some to denigrate Europe once more."

This demonstrates to me with astral clarity that the Lib Dem Eurocrats care only for their status and not a jot for the waste, fraud and theft of EU taxpayers money.

Ms Andreason has still not appeared before any EU official body.

A report published today by Transparency International, a corruption and sleaze watchdog, accuses the ten countries joining the EU in 2004 of being run by a "corrupt clique of political elites and greedy businessmen".

They should fit right in then !

Val Cowell, UK Independence Party