Europe's Three Stooges...

The derision poured on Barroso at G20 makes me reflect on what a terrible shower are the ‘leaders’ of Europe. The only man among them is Angular Merckel.

Let’s take them from the top.

Van Rompuy, the ‘President’ starts off with a handicap because his ludicrous name (to British eyes) only provokes the hoi polloi to make vulgar remarks about ‘rumpy-pumpy’. He seems to have the charisma of a newt. We have never seen him interviewed so we don’t know whether he has a weedy voice that would go with his grey and insignificant appearance or whether he has the commanding oratory that one would expect of a President. Of course, he may be another Churchill. In Flemish. He has always worked in the public sector, but at least he has held elected office.

Verdict? There is less to him than meets the eye.

Which brings us to Barroso.

His appearance at the G20 was pure comedy. This unelected, ex-Maoist Jackanapes lecturing Obama on democracy? You couldn’t make it up. ‘It woz the Yanks wot done it!’ The Eurozone crisis is all the doing of the US political-industrial complex blah, blah….It would be hilarious if it were not for the fact that this self-delusionist is at the helm during an economic melt-down in Europe of cataclysmic proportions. He lives in a parallel world if he believes the rubbish that he spouts.

It seems that he and Rompuy don’t get on too well. That’s no bad thing.

Which brings us to the last of the Three Stooges.

I refer, of course, to the dire ‘Baroness’ Ashton. She has never been elected to anything in her life. She has never earned a penny that didn’t come from the public purse. Throughout her career she rose without trace. She is the EU ‘Foreign Minister’ representing a non-state but which has a diplomatic mission in almost every country in the world. We have little idea as to what she does. Except, of course, build a hugely expensive empire, command a budget that increases at a colossal rate when everyone  else is tightening belts, and travel by executive jet.

And the rest of commissariat?

Too ineffective and insignificant to be noticed?

No wonder that a dull, uncharismatic hausfrau bestrides Europe like a colossus.