Daniel Hannan (ECR). – Mr President, when I was growing up in South America in the 1970s Venezuela was the country that people emigrated to in order to get away from poverty and oppression. How quickly the application of socialism can turn a prosperous, functioning, modern economy into a disaster zone! 800% inflation, running out of food and basic medicines – and, incredibly, documented cases of malnutrition. All the way through the Chavez experiment we had voices on the left in this House and in the national governments cheering it on and saying that it should be a model for our European governments. Now, suddenly, it wasn’t socialism at all – it was sort of an experiment that went wrong, like all of the others, like Yugoslavia, like Romania, like Cuba, China, Russia. It’s always wonderful until it goes wrong, and then it was ‘never proper socialism in the first place’. Invariably the pattern is the same, with the displacement activity we just heard to the effect that, you know, something else bad is happening in Honduras and therefore we shouldn’t care at all. The reality is it was perfect textbook socialism control of an economy that reduced a once—wealthy country to poverty and dirt. When are we going to learn the lesson?

(Applause from certain quarters)