Don’t you just shed a silent tear when you look at Government ‘mission statements’? You know the sort of thing:

Working towards a safer Britain

Why would they do that? What’s with the -r?

Why not work towards a safe Britain?

Here’s a real life example from Scotland:

Towards a Safer Healthier Workplace

Much better to have that than a safe and healthy workplace?

Anyway, here is Foreign Secretary David Miliband urging the case for voting for Labour in this week’s European elections. One reason he cites:

[David Cameron] says he supports overseas development – but denounces the Lisbon treaty’s shift to majority voting that will make it faster and more efficient.

Ha. No chance that EU majority voting will make overseas development fast and efficient!

His claim:

The EU is far from perfect but it is the most successful regional international institution in the world. It is a source of jobs and rights for workers, protection for the environment and stability for new democracies, and a voice for European values and interests in the world.

In the last few years it has led the global drive on climate change and helped entrench peace in Kosovo, while cutting mobile phone charges in its spare time. Last year it cut £1bn of business red tape.

Not quite sure where he gets the idea that the EU "is a source of jobs and rights for workers", as if neither of these things would or could exist without it.

Plus it takes quite a leap of the intellect to get climate change, Kosovo and mobile phone charges in one sentence, but he has that intellect and does it effortlessly.

In my voting region I get to vote for a list with Daniel Hannan on it. If I so choose. Quite a choice available in fact.

Miliband’s Labour seem set to do rather badly:

"I never thought we would get to this," said a Labour MP who now believes that Brown should go. "And I still can’t see how we do it. But my betting would be that something will happen this summer. People out there are angry, they want change – and we can no longer ignore that."

See what I mean? They would have liked to avoid it, but ‘no longer’ can do so?

Comparative politics.