An EU Commission spokesman has stormed out of a BBC Newsnight panel discussion on the Eurozone, after the Daily Telegraph columnist Peter Oborne repeatedly referred to him as an idiot.
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Amadeu Altafaj-Tardio was trying to defend the EU's attempts to resolve the Greek debt crisis, which is threatening to further destabilise the Eurozone. Peter Oborne - never one to hold back - responded to Altafaj-Tardio's claim that EU leaders were handling the crisis properly by calling the spokesman "that idiot in Brussels".
After being branded an idiot for a third time, Altafaj-Tardio unclipped his microphone and left. Jeremy Paxman then castigated Oborne for being rude, arguing that because the spokesman had walked out of the Brussels studio, he couldn't be challenged further. Oborne also used the discussion to plug his book, which attacks those who support the Eurozone project.
The discussion led to a mixed response on the Newsnight Web Team blog and, of course, there was plenty of reaction to the Newsnight Twitter account