Typical of the whole project.

Now no, I´m no more enamoured of Le Pen than you are however, this is typical of the way that teh whole EU project works.

The prospect of Jean-Marie Le Pen becoming the father of the European Parliament led MEPs yesterday to start a frantic attempt to change their own rules to stop the far-right French politician from presiding over the new chamber.

Under the Parliament’s rules its inaugural session must be overseen by its doyen - the oldest MEP - which will be Mr Le Pen, 81, if he is re-elected for the French National Front in the elections in June.

Members who have just realised this are making a last-minute effort to block him, perhaps to give the honour of running the inaugural session on July 14 to the youngest member of the new Parliament.

Just let me make this clear again. No, I don´t think that giving Le Pen a platform for his grandstanding is a good idea.

However, as I say, this is typical of the way that the whole EU project works.

There are a set of rules. If the outcome of following those rules is something unliked then they change the rules. They´ve done this when having votes on the Constitution, the Lisbon Treaty, Maastricht and all of the rest.

That´s just not the right way, is it? Once the rules have been set then we play the game within them, not pick up our ball and go home if we don´t get our own way.

Or is this another one of those things that we British haven´t quite yet educated the world about?