[St Charles Owl]

Its not even part of the story though SCO.

The UK wage levels could comfortably be higher than they are,but the conservative government has been forcing austerity policies for some time now and that has forced wages and living standards lower. Not anything the EU has done.

The EU in helping the eastern european nations adjust is actually in all our interests going forward. Comparing them with the UK - one of the worlds richest economies in that context doesn't really work.

No I agree with you, but as I said in my post replying to 0762 these are the sort of figures that make the EU look really bad for the UK. None of the figures you gave were incorrect but phrased the way you phrased them made it read as though the UK was down and Poland was up because of the EU policy to standardize living standards across all members, when in reality that is not the case. This is the problem with the EU, very few people really know what they do, how they do it and what that costs each of us, and the EU seem to always hide and not be transparent when these things need clearly explaining!! They truly can be their own worst enemy at times and when those times are critical like the referendum they go completely silent!!