The crisis in Greece and across the Eurozone is both tragic and predictable. The Romans tried it; the Greeks themselves did it in ancient times; the Ottomans, the Nazis and the Soviets tried it; even we Brits held it together for only 100 years or so in its full might.

Empires which try to bind together disparate groups of human beings are bound to fail. It is not possible for the inhabitants of the Greek islands and those of Lewis and Harris to have much in common, and the resulting stresses inevitably burst open the artificial straightjacket with which the Emperor tries to hold it together.

Printing vast quantities of new money, an old-fashioned way of describing ‘quantitative easing’, which was announced by the EU central banks this week, will not solve the crisis. Only reforming the whole European economy would do that. QE may stave off the worst effects of it in the short term, but may well make it much worse later. I am glad that the UK is not part of it, although we should not forget that our banks and economy may well be affected by it. The single currency – and the EU project itself – will be remembered by pitying historians.

UKIP MEP Amjad Bashir, who defected to the Tories this week, correctly pointed out that only a Tory Government will deliver on the much-wanted In/Out Referendum, and denounced UKIP as Mr Farage’s “vanity project”. Vicious in-fighting always seems to accompany these UKIP spats as my constituent and friend Neil Hamilton found out for himself recently.

Talking of which, when I was trying to advise some constituents from Foxham and Bremhill about noise containment at the new Defence College at Lyneham this week, I was amused to remember that there were those who wanted the old RAF site to be converted to provide another airport for London. One of the main exponents of a new Heathrow at Lyneham was none other than the lady from Devizes who is standing for UKIP against me at the forthcoming General Election! I wonder if that will be in her local leaflets.

The EU and the Euro are world dominating projects worthy of a Bond villain. The whole project needs a fundamental rebuilding, to recreate the ‘common market’ which is all most of us ever signed up to.

David Cameron must enter into robust negotiations with his EU counterparts to that end, and must put the outcome to a final referendum.