It was wrong that Hermann von Rompuy was appointed to be our president on the say-so of prime ministers and heads of governments and if the EU were a democratic organisation, which it is not, there would have been a proper public election.

The public do mistakes of course. It is difficult to understand, for instance, what on earth the voters of Salford were thinking of when they voted again for Hazel Blears after she had abused their hard earned taxes but look at the alternative to letting the public decide.

Look especially, at the whole series of pitifully bad appointments to the EU Commission made by various British governments. Neil Kinnock went there after having led his party to defeat in a general election and Chris Patten got the job after he lost his seat in the House of Commons.

There are other examples of the doctrine that states that a person who makes a mess of everything in the UK, will by some magical process be brilliant in Brussels. There is Peter Mandelson who was kicked out of the UK government twice before becoming an EU Commissioner. The latest one is Baroness Ashton who pushed the much loathed Lisbon Treaty through the House of Lords and who worked hard to make Britain’s security worse at a time of threat before becoming the EU’s High Representative with special responsibilities for making blunders and being absent from important meetings.

Surely, the public would have chosen better than this.