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		Lib-Dems -- good for a laugh? Wednesday, 11th March 2009 It seems that the East Midlands' sole Lib-Dem MEP, Bill Newton Dunn, is short of things to occupy his time. This may come as a surprise, because there's a euro-election coming on June 4th. He should be busy. But he's just sent a spam e-mail to all MEPs and assistants in the European parliament (that's over two thousand people), asking for jokes from their home countries. He says he wants to publish a joke book. At the last euro-election in 2004, Newton Dunn came bottom out of six MEPs in the region. With the East Midlands MEPs reduced to five in 2009, perhaps he has decided that the odds are stacked against him, and that a career in humorous writing might suit him in retirement. Then again he asks for jokes and humour "about our parliament", so perhaps he is finding after twenty-five years that he can no longer take the European parliament seriously. Commenting on Newton Dunn's plan, Conservative MEP Roger Helmer says that with the economy in meltdown, the euro currency under terrible strain, the EU at loggerheads over a response to the economic crisis, and constituents across the East Midlands worried about jobs and bankruptcies and home repossessions, it could be that a joke book is just the tonic we need. But he wonders if as an MEP, Bill should perhaps have more important concerns to keep him busy. "At the end of the day", says Helmer, "perhaps we shouldn't be too surprised. The Lib-Dems always were a bit of a joke". Helmer continues; "One joke that wont be in Newton Dunn's book is the £130 million annual cost of the Parliament's monthly commute from Brussels to Strasbourg. That's too funny to be true."