Just as British MPs are entitled to question Government ministers, MEPs have the right to question representatives from the Council and the Commission, either in writing or on the floor of Parliament. This is one of the ways in which the European Parliament holds the other institutions to account.

The nature of these questions can vary. Some are straightforwardly factual, asking for particular information. Others challenge ministers or Commissioners over their actions or intentions. Still others are there to make a political point, which can be particularly effective now that anyone can check up on their MEPs’ activities via the Europarl website.

As one might imagine in a Parliament which contains MEPs from every shade of the political spectrum, there are some members whose questions are not always, shall we say, entirely germane. But what’s even stranger is that one such individual, a certain Ashley Mote MEP, has acquired the bizarre habit of copying all his submissions to the entire Parliament via e-mail. I should explain: the e-mail system we have here in Parliament makes it easy for us to e-mail a single colleague or a group, but when it comes to writing to every single MEP in the building, most members exercise a degree of common-sense and are able to restrain themselves from flooding the system.

Not, sadly, Mr Mote. When he feels the need to expound his particular political agenda, hundreds of copies of his missives go whizzing through the ether into the inboxes of every MEP in the building. Most are swiftly transferred to wastebaskets, but of course the Commission or Council staff who receive the actual questions don’t have that option: instead, they have to spend time translating the questions into various languages, forwarding them to the relevant officials, researching responses and publishing the answers. When the questions involve holding the Commission to account, this is money well spent; but when they are nothing but childish timewasting or political points-scoring, this amounts to a spectacular abuse of taxpayers’ money.

Occasionally, someone takes the time to reply to Mr Mote and raises a chuckle with the rest of us. This actually happened twice last week. Charles Tannock, a Tory psychiatrist-turned-politician from London, responded to a Mote classic with the following:

Why are you wasting valuable time of Council officials (and therefore EU taxpayers money which includes the UK!) in translating and having to answer such ridiculous and purposeless PQs.

How about spending more time in getting involved in a constructive but critical dialogue with other EU institutions which serves the interest of your constituents and the rest of humanity.

No reply was, sadly, forthcoming.

Then there was this delightfully tongue-in-cheek response from an SNP member:

Dear colleagues,

I do apologise for the mass nature of this e-mail, though I feel it only right that I bring a marvellous e-mail facility to your attention.

If you are aware of a persistent ‘spammer’ and are tired of your inbox clogging with meaningless nonsense, then you can set up an ‘e-mail rule’ to manage your inbox.

For example, if you receive an e-mail from an individual you are quite sure has little worthwhile to contribute and you feel safe to block their e-mails from evermore, then right click on that e-mail and take the ‘create rule’ option.

… Having been using it for some months, I can vouch for how effective it is. My own ‘list of doom’ extends to a mere 15 individuals yet the rubbish e-mails I get is drastically reduced.

Touché.