Osborne declares victory over paying EU's £1.7bn bill

Only last week David Cameron was refusing to pay the "outrageous" £1.7bn bill the EU is demanding. This week George Osbourne was saying that we're going to pay but we're not going to pay it all. Yesterday he declared victory by paying the full amount.

The EU was demanding a £1.7bn payment to cover the extra amount we would have paid in membership fees since 1995 if they'd included prostitution and drug dealing in their calculations of the size of the UK economy like they are now. George Osborne has brought forward £1bn of next year's rebate to take £850m off the £1.7bn bill so it's still costing us £1.7bn.

While the Tories have been trying to spin this as a victory, the EU have said that this was the amount we were supposed to be paying and Osborne has achieved nothing. If they think we're going to be taken in by some dodgy maths, the Tories must think we're as stupid as they are!