The argument that we have '...no place at the EU table when decisions are taken....' is interesting.

As far as I am concerned the EU is run by a German/French axis, whom appoint unelected commissioners to do their bidding.

The lack of democracy, openness and fairness in the EU was one of the main reasons I voted Leave.

That's the Strand surely?

I don't have a strong view on who has most influence within the EU, but certainly the UK can expect to have less outside it that it does now.

Just curious though, if we did see a deal which was membership in all but name, is that something you'd be happy with?

I can see your concerns about corruption and catering for the multinationals, I'm wondering if being run by a different elite will necessarily make any difference to that.

I don't have a strong view on who has most influence within the EU, but certainly the UK can expect to have less outside it that it does now.

Just curious though, if we did see a deal which was membership in all but name, is that something you'd be happy with?

I can see your concerns about corruption and catering for the multinationals, I'm wondering if being run by a different elite will necessarily make any difference to that.

Yes, but it's a pub, unlike Simpsons on the Strand, which is famous for its bubble and squeak.

I know it well - cheap too for the City. It's a pub that does good food and usually has a good beer selection.

Sir, whilst it maybe called the Simpsons Tavern, it is not a pub.

Francis Wheen Article from 1999

Interesting. Very Interesting.

"A slight smugness is detectable in British reactions to the electoral success of Jörg Haider’s Freedom party in Austria. What can you expect of a country that largely welcomed the Anschluss and chose Kurt Waldheim as its president only a few years ago? Couldn’t happen here, could it?

These shenanigans have been observed with great interest by Nick Griffin and the BNP. Until 1997, under the leadership of Dr Alan Sked, UKIP’s membership form included a clause stressing that racists were not allowed to join. Soon after Sked’s departure, however, the clause mysteriously disappeared. The new leaders, Michael Holmes and Nigel Farage – who are now both MEPs – also set out to “combine our protest” with other anti-Euro campaigners. In his UKIP election leaflet this year, Holmes paid tribute to “citizens’ patriotic protest groups” such as Save Our Sterling – presumably unaware that Save Our Sterling was run by the BNP.

Then came the most disturbing titbit of all: a blurred photo, taken in the summer of 1997, showing Nigel Farage of UKIP chatting to two men. One was Tony “the bomber” Lecomber, the other was Mark Deavin, head of research for the BNP, who had briefly infiltrated UKIP but was expelled in May 1997 after his true affiliations were discovered.

Deavin, who edited Mindbenders, an “expose” of Jews in the media, is also the author of The Grand Plan: The Origins of Non-White Immigration, in which he argues that “the mass immigration of non-Europeans into every White country on earth” had been engineered by “a homogeneous transatlantic political and financial elite to destroy the national identities and create a raceless new world order.” Homogeneous, eh? Allow Deavin to explain: “These concerns were Jewish in origin… the promotion of World Government can also be seen to be in line with traditional Jewish messianic thinking.”

When the photo was sent anonymously to the UKIP a few months ago, Farage expressed bafflement. While admitting that “I briefly met Mr Deavin at his request on June 17 1997, and had lunch with him in a restaurant,” he insisted that “I have no recollection of ever meeting or speaking to Mr Lecomber in my life… I can only surmise that Mr Lecomber was planted outside the restaurant or that the photograph has been doctored.”

Whatever the explanation, the fact that Farage met Deavin after the BNP man’s expulsion was enough to alarm some UKIP members – especially as Farage, who earns his living as a City commodity-broker, is a man who often used words such as “******” and “nig-nog” in the pub after committee meetings. A month after the lunch, by an odd coincidence, Deavin wrote an article in the far-right journal Spearhead which discussed the possibility of closer relations between the BNP and UKIP.

But here’s an even stranger coincidence. Shortly before the 1997 general election, Mark Deavin spoke freely of his plans to undercover researchers from Searchlight magazine and The Cook Report, who had posed as emissaries from Jean-Marie Le Pen’s Front National. One necessary step, he said, was to get rid of the BNP leader John Tyndall (“who is actually an obstacle”) and replace him with Deavin’s chum Nick Griffin. This would leave one other obstacle. “If Blair becomes prime minister,” Deavin predicted, “the BNP will be the official opposition in the inner cities, in working-class areas. The UKIP will be the opposition in the shires, the county areas, the middle-class opposition. That party is a serious opposition to us in middle England, but, if we had the resources, we could tear it to pieces.”

Two weeks ago, at the same time as UKIP was tearing itself apart in Solihull, Nick Griffin duly toppled John Tyndall and promised a “realignment” of the far-right. He may not yet have the popular appeal of Jörg Haider; but he certainly needs watching."

I have heard Simpsons in Cornhill praised (rightly) many times for its bubble & squeak and I have been going there regularly for nearly forty years. I have never been to Simpsons on the Strand nor have I heard its bubble & squeak praised.