Euro-geddon: The EU, born out of idealism 60 years ago, is now a byword for waste, financial chaos and unaccountability - 23rd July 2011

So here go again.

With British attention distracted by the phone-hacking scandal, this week the European political elite hurled another £96 billion at the ailing Greek economy, desperate to stave off a financial meltdown that could plunge the entire European project into disaster.

For the time being, the markets have been mollified. But, of course, we have been here before. Once again the deckchairs are being rearranged on the Titanic.

Riot: Greek protestors take to the streets as their economy stumbles

Indeed, exactly 40 years after Edward Heath's government published the terms for British entry into the European Economic Community, the ancestor of today's EU, there has never been a wider gulf between the privileged European political class and their anxious, bewildered and hard-pressed people.

Back in the summer of 1971, in a moment heavy with idealistic excitement, Heath addressed the British people on TV.

'We have the chance of new greatness,' he said, announcing the ground-breaking European deal.'‘Now we must take it.'