No statues, pirates of Euro-heroes

THE European Commission yesterday took the unusual step of denying that it intends to "litter Britain with statues of EU heroes like Jacques Delors".

The altogether fanciful suggestion, which had received considerable prominence in the Sun, had provoked outraged comment in the same paper from politicians representing the dafter reaches of Euroscepticism.

Under the headings "You daft bustards", "Frog warning", "Barmy Brussels plan", "Delors will have more statues than Churchill", the Sun alleged that MEPs had agreed to spend "millions", up to 1 per cent of all EU assistance to infrastrucuture projects, on busts of EU "heroes".

And, rising like trout to a fly, Tory politicians queued up to denounce the project with ever more inflated hyperbole.

A former transport secretary, Mr Stephen Norris, warned that busts of Mr Delors could be a "traffic hazard". "There is no doubt," he said," that it would inflame passions faster than an ad for Pamela Anderson."

"This is a disgusting plan to brainwash the people of Britain into bowing to the EU. It is the thin end of a very thick wedge," one MP, Mr David Shaw, claimed.

Another, Mr Ian Duncan Smith, saw it as a "throwback to Stalinist Russia where they tried to wipe clean the record of history".

The former Tory leadership contender, Mr John Redwood, in a personal column asked if the British taxpayer would have to "foot the bill for a Neil Kinnock in stone?"

"Does this mean a statue of William the Conqueror at Hastings or Julius Caesar at Folkestone to remind us that Britain was fully integrated into Europe by the Romans 2,000 years earlier?

Readers were invited to vote on whether they wanted statues of Jacques Delors put up all over Britain by ringing two numbers.

The truth, as the Commission spokesman, Mr Klaus van der Pas, pointed out, is far more prosaic. MEPs had in fact voted on a resolution proposing to the Commission that it should spend up to 1 per cent of its funding on roads and other infrastructural work on artistic works to decorate them.

There was no reference in the resolution to "heroes", or Mr, Delors, or Mr Kinnock.

The Sun also attacked a proposal from the same resolution to commission a neutral history of Europe for schools.

One Tory MEP, Mr Roy Perry, warned that "Sir Francis Drake could end up portrayed as a pirate and we could find Florence Nightingale being squeezed out. The French will want to portray Napoleon as a great statesman and Wellington's victory could be dismissed ins a fluke."