Thousands of elderly and disadvantaged people across the East Midlands could soon see their local post office closed following a BBC decision to stop selling TV licenses at post offices.

Over five million people currently buy their TV licence at their local Post Offices, which have sold the licenses for the last 60 years. However, in March this year, the BBC announced it has decided not to continue using local branches to collect the fees for the administration of the licenses.

The impact of these closures will be massive and could sound the death knoll for many smaller, rural post offices where the BBC business can account for up to 70 per cent of trade. These branches are a vital lifeline for many older people, particularly those without bank accounts and closing them will mean that important services are increasingly becoming available only to car drivers or those with Internet access.

I would like to take this opportunity to assure all my constituents in the East Midlands that there will be no let up in my work at the European Parliament. I remain as committed as ever to cracking down on corruption, rooting out inefficiency and representing the East Midlands as ever I was. My website on www.heatonharris.com will remain dedicated to my work in the European Parliament.

If you wish to catch up on my activities in Daventry, you should visit the Conservative Association website on www.daventryconservatives.com

I have recently thrown my weight behind the “One Seat” Campaign. This is not some bizarre EU directive limiting each person to just one chair at their house – though given some of the nonsense that comes out of the European Union I would not be surprised.

In fact it is a very serious attempt to try to save you a considerable amount of tax money, and to save me a considerable amount of time and effort.

The seat in question is the seat of the European Parliament, in other words where we MEPs meet. I and others believe that there should be just one seat or meeting place – preferably in Brussels. After all, the House of Commons meets only at Westminster. It does not suddenly bunk off to Skegness for a week (tempting though that might be!).

But the European Parliament currently has two seats: Brussels and Strasbourg. We meet most of the time in Brussels, but once a month we all troop off to Strasbourg for a week of meetings. In itself that is disruptive enough – but the real farce is that it is not just the MEPs who move. The secretaries, researchers, note-takers and all the rest of them go as well. And transporting all those people and office paraphernalia costs money. So does having the buildings sitting empty in Strasbourg for most of the time.

It all adds up to about £142 million each year at the last count. With all those new countries joining the EU, that figure is only going to increase. It is not as if it is really worth it. Despite the fact that everybody is meant to go to Strasbourg, around 25% don’t bother. For some reason the Irish fail to turn up more than anyone else.

So why does the EU Parliament behave in such a bizarre fashion? Well it all dates back to the days when the European Union was simply the European Economic Community (EEC).

Back in 1952 the EU Parliament, as such, did not exist. Instead there was an Assembly of MPs appointed from the various national parliaments who met now and then to discuss EEC business. They met in Strasbourg because there was a handy building available and because train links were good from the six countries that were then part of the EEC.
 

The problem – and I suppose this is no real surprise – has been the French. They rather like having the EU Parliament meeting in Strasbourg once a month. It gives them prestige and importance. It also brings a flood of cash into the restaurants, hotels and other facilities of the city – many of which put their prices up for the EU Parliament weeks. And Air France has a nice little monopoly on flight routes to Strasbourg Airport.

Most MEPs want to ditch Strasbourg, but France has a veto and uses it. The only way around this is for the governments of the various EU countries to get tough with the French. So far, they have not done so because they don’t really care too much. After all, it is your tax money that is being wasted, not their own.

But there is another way. If one million EU nationals sign a petition for a motion, then that can be proposed and voted on. So I am backing the One Seat Campaign, which aims to get those million signatures. I ask you to sign up online at the One Seat website www.oneseat.eu.

You will be doing me a favour, and saving yourself some money.

Like all politicians, I suppose, I like to think that I am doing a pretty good job on behalf of the people who elected me. I like to think that I can influence people and events along the lines of the views of the manifesto on which I stood.

After all, that is how our democracy works. The people vote for a candidate with whose views they agree, then expect that candidate (if elected) to push those views forward. To be honest most of us politicians probably overestimate just how influential we really are.

But even I was surprised to see my name being used as part of a scientific formula in one of the more respected journals from the various think tanks that knock about the European Parliament. The publication in question was “The European Journal” (April 2006 edition), which is issued by the European Foundation – an organisation that campaigns for an EU of sovereign states.

The formula in question was this L = n3(T/t).

With the symbols meaning:

L = Likelihood of a person “going native” in Brussels

n = The number of drinks consumed with Chris Heaton-Harris one evening

T = Time spent in Brussels

t = Time spent studying the effects of Brussels.

To save you trying to work that out (I had to ask a friend who did maths at university to help me), the basic message is this. A person is more likely to go native if they spend more time in Brussels – which is true. However that person is less likely to go native if they spend time studying the effects of the EU on everyday life – again true.

But that however much time the person in question spends doing either is dwarfed by the number of drinks that they have with me on any given evening. If the person has two drinks with me the figure L is the square root of the product of T/t. If that person has three drinks with me the figure comes out as the cubed root of T/t.

Well, it is nice to be thought of as influential. But this was all a bit much, I thought. For a start I don’t spend that much time hanging around in bars buying people drinks and banging on about how awful the EU really is.

But as more and more people read the article, it seemed that a consensus of opinion built up that, in fact, I do spend a fair amount of time going on about the EU and how corrupt, badly run and anti-democratic it is.

Of course the article in question was a light-hearted one. The author was just trying to make a point. His point was that the people most in favour of the EU and least likely to criticise it are those who either work for the EU or who spend a lot of time in Brussels enjoying the hospitality and lavish funding that the EU can churn out (using your tax money). On the other hand those least in favour of the EU and most likely to point out its many defects are those poor souls on the receiving end of EU regulation and tax bills.

As for me, well I suppose I do try to persuade people just how dreadful the current EU set up actually is.

Oh – and the drink in question? Good old-fashioned English beer. Cheers.

You can visit the European Foundation on their excellent website www.europeanfoundation.org

To celebrate its 50th anniversary next year, the EU is to hold a competition to find a new slogan. The current one, "Unity in Diversity", is apparently past its sell-by date. As MEPs, Roger Helmer and I should like to invite East Midlands electors to take part.