Jul 20, 2004
Not always proud to be British
First, we have this. It's official: Agatha Christie is the UK's favourite crime writer.
OK, that's just mildly embarrassing, even in a country full of superlative crime fiction writers.
But this is the kind of thing that makes me ashamed of my own country. The UK Independence Party shows that it means it when it talks about disrupting the European Parliament, by choosing as its representative on the committee for women's rights and gender equality a man whose view on maternity policy is"If you want to have a baby, you hand in your resignation and free up a job for another young lady." We can now expect the nomination to be opposed and Ukip to complain that they're being victimised, no doubt. The party is also proud to report that its MEPs tore up their ballot papers in protest at a"federalist" leader... (although you won't come away from that link much the wiser as to what the story's actually about, which is the election of the former Portuguese PM, Jose Durao Barroso, as the Parliament's president). The Independent thinks that they might be back-tracking on their pledge to 'wreck' the Parliament. Well, that's not what I'm seeing here.
We elected twelve of these people (we have a total of 78) as MEPs. It makes voting for Ralph Nader look almost mature in comparison.
The question is, might there be a connection between these two stories: between voting for Agatha Christie and voting for Ukip?
OK, that's just mildly embarrassing, even in a country full of superlative crime fiction writers.
But this is the kind of thing that makes me ashamed of my own country. The UK Independence Party shows that it means it when it talks about disrupting the European Parliament, by choosing as its representative on the committee for women's rights and gender equality a man whose view on maternity policy is"If you want to have a baby, you hand in your resignation and free up a job for another young lady." We can now expect the nomination to be opposed and Ukip to complain that they're being victimised, no doubt. The party is also proud to report that its MEPs tore up their ballot papers in protest at a"federalist" leader... (although you won't come away from that link much the wiser as to what the story's actually about, which is the election of the former Portuguese PM, Jose Durao Barroso, as the Parliament's president). The Independent thinks that they might be back-tracking on their pledge to 'wreck' the Parliament. Well, that's not what I'm seeing here.
We elected twelve of these people (we have a total of 78) as MEPs. It makes voting for Ralph Nader look almost mature in comparison.
The question is, might there be a connection between these two stories: between voting for Agatha Christie and voting for Ukip?