As a result of this, it has worked out the value of some things, such as illegal activities, which it should have been including in the national accounts for some time.

The UK has just started including the money made from prostitution as part of the size of its economy - it's a relatively small amount of money but it's a good example.

It's been added as a result of a change in statistical accounting methods, but actually it should have been doing this for years.

And how much of that money have they received back in grants for redevelopment, farming subsidies, new industry etc.?

However, I think it would be logical to assume that being in the EU is not an obvious gain for the richer states like the UK and Germany, who must in some way be subsidising the poorer ones like Spain and the accession countries. One of the whole points of the EU is to attempt to normalise the economies within it.

Germany 'would accept UK exit from EU' to protect migration rules.

Oh, I don't know. Germany looks set to get a rebate out of this round of recalculations while Greece has been asked to pay more. While I obviously haven't seen the figures I can't help but feeling that subjectively that just doesn't seem right somehow.

I think Roisin Conaty made an interesting observation on HIGNFY last night - this is a bit like a relationship with one side trying to get the other to split it up by making outlandish demands. It's playing right into the hands of the anti-EU birgade here and presumably in several other countries as well.

Well you may recall that the Office for National Statistics recently recalculated the size of our national income to take account of unreported or under-reported parts of the economy, such as research and development, illicit drugs and prostitution.

UK faces interest charges on EU payment demand

According to calculation methods released by the commission, the UK's interest charge would be more than £3.5m next month if it does not make the payment on time, the BBC's Europe correspondent Chris Morris said.

The amount levied would work out at an average of £114,247 per day for the first month, and if no UK payments were made within the first year, the average interest charged could rise to nearly £250,000 per day over the course of the year.

simple answer, withhold all payments to the EU ...