Mark, thanks for posting that. It made my morning. A snake with a propensity to discuss his plans for EU-wide taxation in secret meetings, Van Rompuy (I wrote about him here) deserves all the abuse he gets, and so for that matter does Belgium, a miserable, forced-together “nation” with domestic politics even more poisonous than its foreign policy — and that’s saying something.

It has to be admitted that the man hurling the insults, UKIP MEP Nigel Farage, is something of a rum cove himself. He will be standing for the British parliament against John Bercow, the current Speaker of the House of Commons, at the next election. Bercow is yet another rum cove and a far from impressive figure (I’m being polite: British journalist Quentin Letts preferred to use the phrase “shameless, bumptious, expenses-fiddling greaser“). As traditionally the Speaker is unopposed at elections, the reliably spineless Tories are not prepared to run a candidate against him, so Farage is having a go instead. It would be most amusing if he won.