> (Of course, the only people that take EU pay and deliberately do a bad job or fail to turn up are ... UKIP MEPs)

Well that's blatantly not true. And their "job" is to represent their voters, which they are doing. "We shouldn't be here," was their cry in the Euro election.

Absenteeism/disruption by representative politicians is perfectly fine in my book, as long as that's what they campaign on.