Why Buttiglione has a right to his opinions - and the rest of us have a right not to employ him
Wednesday, October 27, 2004 BBC NEWS | World | Europe | Barroso backs down over EU vote

Buttiglione has a right to his opinions. He must do - if not then we have succumbed to a new kind of censorship which does not remotely match our much vaunted views on human rights. But does this mean that he has a right to be Justice and Home Affairs Commissioner for the European Union? Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini certainly seems to think so. He has said that Buttiglione remains Italy's candidate.

There's a recent British comparison which no-one seems to have pointed out. Not so long ago a UKIP MEP was in trouble on a very similar issue. BBC NEWS | Politics | UKIP MEP in row over working women. After getting a seat on the Euopean Parliament's women's rights committee, he told journalists: "No self-respecting small businessman with a brain in the right place would ever employ a lady of child-bearing age." He went on to say "I just don't think they clean behind the fridge enough". and "I am here to represent Yorkshire women who always have dinner on the table when you get home. I am going to promote men's rights."

Of course, Godfrey Bloom later claimed that his remarks were humorous. Some of us, of course, believe that Bloom's entire party is a bit of a joke. But I don't think it's the humour that saved him.

The difference, which Buttiglione and Frattini don't seem to have grasped, is that there is a fundamental difference between an elected and an appointed office. In terms of mandate, a European Commissioner is exactly the same as a senior civil servant. Except of course that a senior civil servant actually had to go through a job interview to reach their position.

In some ways it is despicable for Godfrey Bloom to say the things he did, but, on the other hand, this may be exactly the kind of thing that the 14% of Yorkshirepersons who voted for him wanted to hear. And if not, they can vote for someone else next time.

We get no choice about Buttiglione - or, at least, we didn't until now. The stand off engineered by the EU parliament has at last begun to swing the balance of power in favour of the elected assembly over the appointed bureaucracy.

There very definitely is a place for conscience and conviction in politics, whether it comes from faith, or from secular philosophy, or from being a very old-fashioned business man whose tongue moves faster than his brain. But that place is won through the ballot box, not through ministerial patronage.

If we are to learn one lesson from this constitutional crisis, it is that the current form of power vested in unelected commissioners is way past its sell-by date. It is festering on the shelf and should be dealt with before it turns nasty. Today the European Parliament came of age. It is high time that it be given the keys to the house. 6:57 pm