Richard North over at EU Referendum has been discussing the importance of the EU in the tax debate - the "elephant in the room", as he puts it. It's definitely a problem, not only tax but in all areas, that the EU is often quietly left to one side by politicians too ashamed or deceitful to admit that they have in fact signed away vast swathes of Parliamentary power and by people fearful of being tarred as euro-obsessive. Doing so is a dis-service to the issue and most of all to the people of Britain who have to foot the bill for the EU and have to live under its undemocratic rules and regulations.
Richard reckons the British think tank world has dropped the ball on the EU, and there are certainly a lot of targets yet to be shot at. There has, though, been a shift recently with the UK MPs' expenses story and the accompanying new focus on transparency and accountability naturally leading the eyes of the media on to Brussels, undeniably one of the least transparent and accountable seats of Government in the Western world. The News of the World, for example, has just started a series of investigate reports into the EU Parliament, which is a good step.
The EU is a massively important issue for all sorts of reasons, many of which fall squarely under the remit of the TPA - and it's something we'll be taking a close look at very soon, so Richard should watch this space. The elephant had better watch its step...