As a real contender in the European elections, Ukip is about to experience the blessing and the curse of close media scrutiny
Becoming a properly "major" party, entitled to all available TV balance and courtesies for the European elections, is good news and bad news for Ukip and Nigel Farage. The good news – probably – is that we shall see a lot more of him. The bad news is that we may also learn a lot more about him (particularly from copious investigations by the Times, chronicling the high jinks and low politics of Nigel and his followers in Strasbourg). Why didn't we know, last July, that Ukip had voted against returning £85m to Britain; that they refused to give crime victims greater protection; that they didn't back language tests for eastern European doctors who want to work for the NHS?
And what about the parliamentary question of the week, inquiring whether "Mr Farage thinks it's a fair use of taxpayers' money, namely his secretarial allowance, not only to employ his wife Kirsten but his former mistress Annabelle Fuller?" That (asked on the floor of the assembly by a disaffected ex-Ukip MEP, and hotly denied by Farage) is probably the longest direct quote from European parliament proceedings since Tony Blair's last prime ministerial visit there.
Traditionally, Strasbourg doesn't get reported much in the British press. It's designated a boring foreign gravy train and consigned to grey oblivion; like, it would seem, 10 years of Nigel dinners at the Pierre Bois et Feu and sundry munching spots, with or without female company. But now, suddenly, the light has begun to dawn. Now, as quick as you can down Pierre's poached egg with foie gras, the hounds are after the truffles. At last, at last: an EU story that hits the tabloid spot.
Read more here >> The Guardian | Quail eggs
