It’s a nice job if you can get it

Date: 23/01/1997

The knives are out for Tom Spencer, chairman of the British Tory Euro MPs.

Friends and enemies alike within the European Democratic Group are incensed because they say Spencer awarded himself the star prize chairmanship of the foreign affairs committee in the latest shake-out of posts.

“He's already got enough to do. He should have passed it on to someone else,” grumbled a highly-miffed source.

The foreign affairs job was offered to the Tory Group as a consolation prize for losing out in the carve-up of vice- presidency places.

Rather unwisely, many think, the Tories had nominated Bryan Cassidy, a well-known and unapologetic right-winger who is seen as more sceptic than Euro, for one of the EPP's four vice-presidential nominations.

An internal EDG election ended with the rejection of long-server Sir Jack Stewart-Clark. But the Tories misjudged their EPP colleagues: Cassidy was seen as too unfederal to go forward as an EPP candidate, leaving the Tories with absolutely nothing out of the new job distribution.

“Ha ha,” crowed the British Labour crowd, pointing out that they now have more posts (22) than there are British Conservative MEPs.

But foreign affairs is a nice little number spoiled only by the row now brewing over why Spencer decided to hog it for himself, instead of passing it on to a deserving colleague.