On Fairy Tales

This past week, I've been reading one newspaper non-stop: the Labour-leaning Guardian, and they've been telling fairy tales. Included in each issue the past week were booklets containing some of the most well-known fairy tales, which I've been accumulating for use a few years down the road in the event the Mrs. and I beget little Missouri expats (although in most likelihood, they'll be Kentish expats in Missouri). To get the most of the £8 we've paid to collect the booklets, I've subjected myself to the Guardian's telling of the ongoing fairy tale of how little Gordy will rise back to the top, even as his Commons leader defiantly challenges the retroactive application of new reimbursement limits.

(Sidenote of great importance: one ongoing tale where the valiant hero is the Guardian just hit the denoument, as they have achieved victory over the nefarious villain Trafigura over the oil firm's attempts to squelch Parliament debate, coverage of such debate, and court rulings squelching coverage of such debate, over Trafigura's alleged dumping of oil waste off the Ivory Coast. A much-needed victory for free press that even resulted in Gordon Brown applauding a motion from a Tory backbencher.)

Chief among the Guardian's fairy tales was spelled out on Sunday, when they told about the story of David the Etonian going to Brussels to tag up with Polish apologists, Latvian SS-lovers, and Czech global warning sceptics. Among the articles telling this story, foreign secretary David Miliband penned a column criticising the Conservatives for aligning with such parties instead of sticking with the mainstream conservatives parties fronted by Sarkozy, Merkel and Berlusconi. The tale spelled out over the course of seven pages, including an extensive piece on the leader of Poland's Law and Justice Party, Michal Kaminski, who stymied Poland's attempts to apologise for atrocities committed on its Jewish residents during Nazi occupation in World War II. What makes this heavy coverage a fairy tale is this:

There isn't as much concern about the European Parliament in Middle England as there should be. I noted four months ago that the big winner of the night when the UK counted its European Parliament voters was Yasmina from The Apprentice, as that aired on BBC One while the two BNP members elected to Parliament made their victory speeches on BBC Two. To further the apparent contempt shown for those elections, BBC dumped The Apprentice finale from its regular slot on Wednesday as to avoid conflicting with a World Cup qualifier game on ITV, where England demolished Andorra 6-0.

So what impact is a Conservative side shying away from its natural connections to the continent's centre-right and Christian Democrat parties in favour of parties with global warming sceptics and questionable stances on same-sex rights? Frankly, I doubt that's going to weigh on the mind of British voters when the next election rolls around. As much as UKIP would like the debate to be focused on the growing control of the European Parliament in Brussels/Strasbourg on UK affairs, parliamentary expenses, the economy and government spending will be front and centre in the next election, which again will be no later than 3 June.

Please note that I'm not in defence of this grouping. While the Tories formed this group of anti-Federalists to hammer a Jeffersonesque approach to running the EU, this new group only accounts for ten percent of MEPs. And given the far-right stance of some of these parties (including Latvia's TB/LNNK, which has only one MEP), they might be more suited for the BNP than the party set to form the next government no later than June.