How to make a million in five years (become a Euro MP)

Evidently the downturn in the world economy has not affected the Euro MP's much. In fact, business has never been better.

In the small studio's near the EU Parliment.....Belgians call them les cinq à sept (five to sevens) because people using them, leave work at five and arrive home to their wives at seven. They seem to have been enthusiastically adopted by some members of the nearby parliament for daytime hanky panky, or as the above video from the movie "Anchorman" shows..... "afternoon delight"

How can MEPs afford the luxuries these tough times? Well, Brussels is a bubble that has escaped the recession, thanks to the many millions that European taxpayers pour into the pockets of Euro-parliamentarians and Eurocrats alike, for adventures like this.

The Euro fatcats enjoy allowances that enable them to save £1m during a single parliament election, and vastly outpace the British for sheer effrontery, and they do so without having to account for themselves.

Read the investigative report in THE TIMES

European officials warned of 'interns trading sex for secrets'

Somebody's been up late watching too many James Bond movies....or in the case of Eurocrats, more like Austin Powers.

European Commission officials are being told to beware of the charms of Mata Hari type interns, who are accused of trading sex for the innermost EU secrets....like how to draw a huge salary as a Eurocrat without actually doing anything.

Paranoid Brussels security officials fear that Eurocrats might be susceptible to the attractive guise of the "pretty trainee with the long legs and the blonde hair". I'm sure they spent about three million euro's studying that....not including hotel rooms.

Every year hundreds of "stagiares", or interns, work at the Commission's Berlaymont HQ in Brussels. Many of them are young, female and some, it has been claimed, are engaged in espionage. Rumour has it that Monica Lewinsky has just been hired as Barasso's personal aide!

"I think men working here in boring jobs would love to believe that sexy women spies were after their bodies and their secrets. I personally think it is unlikely," said Petra, a 24-year old stagiare from a Baltic country.

STORY IN THE TIMES