I found myself in a BBC television studio last week where I was asked to complete the sentence ‘the big issue of the next general election will be...’ My answer (having been told to make it a soundbite) was three little words ‘the economy stupid’. They were asking about the next general election, whenever it may be. Voting for our European representatives had not yet begun. Had they asked what the issue of the European election was, I'd have answered that the thing about the 2009 European election was the fact that it had nothing to do with Europe.

Increasingly local elections and the destinies of those who put themselves up for election at them have become inseparable from party politics at a national level. Large numbers of very good Labour councillors in the shires were shown the door last week as electors punished them for a recession that has begun to bite (which in reality is part of a worldwide economic crisis) and an expenses scandal that has created a madhouse atmosphere in Westminster (even though all parties have been culpable). The whole issue of Europe got crowded out of the cacophony.

This is a shame as Europe and more specifically Labour in Europe is very much a ‘good news story’. On one level it is Europe that has kept the post-war peace. The thought of a major world war between the European powers is now unimaginable since we are all on the same side. On another side if we leave aside the Euro myths of those meddling Brussels bureaucrats trying to regulate how curly our bananas are permitted to be the average person on the street is much better off because of our involvement in the European Union. It is as a result of the EU working time directive that holiday pay, paternity and maternity rights have been enshrined. EU competition law paved the way for budget airlines which have normalised air travel to Euro destinations. In terms of fighting climate change and for peace and prosperity common solutions at a European level make sense in our globalised, interdependent 21st century world. Under the Thatcher-Major governments the spoils of the European social chapter were only something we progressives could marvel at as the UK revelled in its splendid isolation. Now we are a key player. Only membership of the Euro eludes us.

Compare and contrast this situation with Cameron's Conservatives. They rail about BNP extremism and rightly so. However, they have signalled their intention to come out of out the mainstream centre right EPP grouping of the European parliament and join with a bunch of extremist Latvian, Polish and other assorted right-wingers who are as equally questionable as Nick Griffin and co. It's a shame not more was made of this during the Euro election. Instead all we heard was the scratched record mantra of a general election now.

While hysteria has reigned ever since the Torygraph started its drip-drip of expenses revelations and there are signs that we may be about to turn a corner in the economic situation now is not the time for the nation to be plunged into a general election campaign where hostilities would endure for at least a month, plunging matters into further disarray. Furthermore the 'anyone can be a candidate' APB advertised on Conservative Home shows that their talent-search type candidate selection is not to be undertaken until the autumn so why an election now Dave? Is it another case of saying one thing and meaning another like the secret spending cuts to slash 10% from the budgets of major government departments that Andrew Lansley let slip the other day?

For many years the Euro elections were almost a parallel universe for Labour supporters. We won in 1989 only to get beaten in the 1992 general election. In 1984, another set of good Labour results were followed by a Tory trouncing in 1987, the Conservative poster 'Don't Let Neil Kinnock in to Number 10 through the back door' was seen to have backfired as polling found that many voters quite liked the idea of a Labour win. Let us hope that now as Labour licks its wounds in its worst ever Euro showing, history repeats itself that this poll does not predict anything other than that the next general election is won by a handsome margin by Labour.

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