Mr Pooter goes to Europe

By Leo McKinstry, The Spectator, 17 August 2002: The modern MEP is a titan of tedium, a figure whose every action spreads ennui through our civic life. Only a hardline bore would want to handle the pettifogging bureaucratic activities of the European parliament, and only a true bore could possibly think that the pontificating and prattling of MEPs could be of the slightest interest to anyone outside their number… ‘A period of silence from you would be welcome,’ Clement Attlee once told the garrulous socialist and Labour executive member Harold Laski. The same remark could be directed today at our overpaid, publicity fixated MEPs.