BEFORE the Parliament rose for its summer recess, an incident occurred which brought back memories of recent British political history.

Readers may remember that when, in a vote of Tory MPs, Lady Thatcher lost the Tory leadership in 1990 by just two votes, she had spent the day of the vote not shoring up her support in Westminster but occupied in international business in Paris. Many felt afterwards that, had she remained in London, she might have been able to persuade two additional Tory MPs to vote for her, and thus history would have been very different.

But history repeated itself just a few weeks ago when Michael Portillo, then the favourite to be the next Tory leader, came to speak to Conservative MEPs on, yes, you have already guessed, the day Tory MPs in Westminster were voting in the party leadership election. As we now know, they decided by a single vote that Portillo's name should not be put to the general ballot of party members.

It was good to see him in Brussels on that day, and he certainly spoke superbly, but I wonder if he regrets not concentrating that day on those in Westminster who actually had a vote, rather than on those of us in Brussels who did not.

WHATEVER you think about the European institutions in Brussels, you can not deny their importance in our national life. A recent report produced by the Parliament shows that more than half our laws are made in Brussels. Huge swathes of legislation covering areas such as transport, the environment, trade and social policy are now drawn up by the EU, rather than by the Government . This will soar even further. Whether you agree with this trend or not, there is an urgent need for better scrutiny of these matters in the House of Commons and for increased awareness of what we MEPs are up to in Brussels and Strasbourg. I like to think that my Letter from Europe might just help a little bit in raising that awareness.

FOR understandable reasons, I have kept rather quiet about the recent General Election. I was obviously disappointed that some of our excellent Conservative candidates did not win seats in the North West and thereby bring a better balance to the political representation of the region. But I was right about the turnout, although I never expected it to drop below 60per cent. I spent the campaign travelling from top to bottom of the North West region, meeting people from all parties and enjoying some good political discussions with supporters and opponents alike. But whatever our politics, none of us can be happy that so many of our fellow citizens just could not be bothered to vote for anyone. Apparently, more people voted for their choice in Big Brother than voted in the General Election. What is Britain coming to?