Brown conquers the sceptics in Strasbourg

A busy Strasbourg session was given further excitement with Gordon Brown's arrival this afternoon. The Prime Minister took part in a debate in the Parliament on the preparation of the crucial G20 summit, before meeting with the Labour MEPs and then the Socialist group, and then travelling on to New York for further preparatory talks.

Gordon's passionate speech, which ranged from the need for regulatory reform and investment to deal with the financial crisis to tackling climate change and maintaining overseas development aid, was from the heart and certainly confounded those who claim that he is a eurosceptic - his final sentence called for a "united Europe founded on shared ideals", while he was at pains to stress that he was "proud to be British and proud to be European". Among Socialist colleagues, the consensus was that it was a great speech and he was given a rousing standing ovation from all national delegations in our group and beyond (even managing to get applause from Danny Cohn-Bendit, the leader of the Greens).

Eurosceptics were represented by some particularly wild contributions (even by their standards) from Nigel Farage and Dan Hannan. Farage argued that parliamentary democracy doesn't work, neither at Westminster nor in the European Parliament. A bizarre rant, which brought a knowing smile from Gordon!

Eurosceptics block reform so able to continue attacking EU

Sadly, the Written Declaration (the European Parliament's equivalent to an "Early Day Motion" in the House of Commons) calling on governments to allow the EP to hold all its sittings in Brussels, just failed to gather the target of 300 signatures that its authors had set themselves.

I was dismayed to discover many British MEPs had not bothered to sign the Declaration to reduce the time-wasting and costly junket to Strasbourg. Whilst British Labour MEPs supported the Declaration, the other UK political parties remained divided on the issue. A number of Tories, some Liberals and one of the two Greens failed to sign the Declaration. Most surprising of all, the leader of UKIP, Nigel Farage, refused to sign (despite emailing me personally to say "for once, I think you may be right") as did four of the other 11 MEPs elected as UKIP in 2004.

UKIP is always quick to accuse the EU of wasting taxpayer's money, but given the chance to press for an end to the costly monthly travel to the French city, Farage and nearly half of his following prefer to retain the junket! It would appear that UKIPs claims to oppose waste in the EU are empty. They would prefer to retain the two seats in order to continue accusing the EU of waste!

Less surprising is that the elusive Kilroy-Silk was one of those who failed to sign the WD. Kilroy's absence from the Parliament is legendary, so he is probably of the opinion that this won't affect him too much.

Although this WD is of course not legally binding, if it had been adopted by the Parliament it would have sent a clear message to the Member States (who have the power take this decision). It is high time national governments revise the 1992 decision (at the Edinburgh European Council chaired by John Major) obliging Parliament to shift twelve weeks of the year to Strasbourg.

Rumours abound about Strasbourg parliament

Ever since the roof caved in in the Strasbourg parliament, rumours have flown back and forth about the state of the building.

The latest gossip is that the steel used to construct the parliament was the same as that used to build Terminal 2E in Charles de Gaulle airport, which collapsed in 2004, killing four people.

If the rumour turns out to be true, and it only is a rumour, it would appear that the Strasbourg Parliament will be out of order for quite some time.