EU, Conservatives & Regulation

Open Europe - a think tank not renowned for its Eurosceptism - has published a new report today on the cost of regulation.

"....regulation has cost the UK economy £176 billion since 1998 - roughly equivalent to the country's entire budget deficit. Of this amount, £124 billion, or 71%, had its origin in EU legislation."

Oh, and the Conservative Party need not trumpet too much about cutting regulation for business either as ".....a future Conservative government will only have full control over 28 per cent of the cost of regulation."

If Open Europe's Sarah Gaskell believes "........passing laws as close as possible to the citizen is not only more democratic, but also vastly cheaper." then it follows that devolving 'government' down to local authorities on domestic matters would also save the taxpayer money.

In the same press summary Open Europe reports on a call to reduce the number of commissioners to 12 from the present 27. Why stop at 12, one has to ask, surely 1 would do? I mean to say, how many dictators does a dictatorship need for heaven's sake?