Labour MEP for Yorkshire & Humber
The 30th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall brings back some personal memories. Three in particular are amusing but illustrative. The first is from when I hitchhiked to Berlin in 1973 as an 18 year old, getting a lift from inside West Germany and going along the “corridor” road through East Germany to […]
“A MEMBER of Labour’s leadership has revealed new plans to keep Britain in the EU for an extra two years” shrieked the hysterical sub heading of David Maddox’s deliberately disingenuous piece in the Daily Express yesterday. Apparently, I have let slip a secret plan to keep “UK in EU even longer”. Really? Well, Mr. Maddox […]
We have surrendered control of football to UEFA and FIFA — a conspiracy of foreigners imposing their diktats on us. It has always been a problem that matches are overseen by unelected referees, clearly biased against us, whom we can’t remove during the match itself. But things are going from bad to worse. We no […]
A letter in last week’s Spectator magazine bemoaned the journalistic habit of using “Europe” as a shorthand for “the European Union”. I was amused, and sent them this further comment: Sir, Your correspondent Anthony Jennings takes umbrage at the shorthand “Europe” to refer to the European Union. A lady I met the other day told […]
I am very pleased that during this week’s Fisheries Committee, the European Commission announced emergency measures to alleviate the threat to the conservation of ‘poisson d’avril’ in Europe. What this means in practice is that during the key spawning period for the species this year, starting on 1st April, it will be prohibited to exploit […]
Aside from the serious work that goes on, most parliaments also have their amusing and quirky side. Perusing the bookshop at Westminster, you find plenty of books with anecdotes and tales of the lighter side of politics and some of the more colourful characters who have inhabited the building. The European Parliament too has its share of yarns and […]
The arrival of new and old MEPs in Strasbourg for the first European Parliament session has been described as feeling like the first week of a new school year — with new pupils (sorry, Members) getting lost, sorting out who gets which room (sorry, office), finding out who will be in which class (sorry, committee) […]
A colleague shared with me this rather fun extract from the Atlas of Prejudice, showing 20 different ways to slice up the continent of Europe. Enjoy!
I’m old enough to remember watching (as a very young boy) England’s victory in the 1966 World Cup final. At the time, I thought it was in the natural order of things that England should be world champions. I was fully expecting us to continue this domination of world football. I was already puzzled that […]