Spring 2015 Issue
HAVING FUN AT BRUSSELS’ EXPENSE Almost daily, the European Union is blamed for promulgating silly laws aimed at stifling civic society and making people miserable. No issue seems too small for Brussels being assigned responsibility. Whenever the European Commission issues a directive, it is promptly misinterpreted and expanded to cause indignation by that part of the press appealing to the easily manipulated sentiments of the broader public. Thus it was that a proposal to revisit the directive regarding the sale of firearms in light of recent terrorist attacks was misconstrued as a broadside against the British Royal Armoury Museum and the National Army Museum. The Daily Telegraph reported (Dec 18, 2015) that both institutions would have to destroy their thousands of historic guns lest they fall into the wrong hands. However, the newspaper failed to mention that the directive does not apply to public authorities and entities recognised as serving a public purpose – such as museums. British publishers have discovered that making preposterous allegations against the European Union sells newspapers. Alas, truth does not. The papers are particularly fond of “reporting” on diktats emanating from Brussels. Here a short list of things that the EU has prohibited according to recent reports in British tabloids: double decker buses, Peter Pan, rhododendrons, firefighters’ poles, herbal remedies, milk of magnesia, coffee drinking in excess, naked cows, toy xylophones, and gin in square bottles. And this is just a sampling of euromyths peddled by some of the more exuberant newspapers. BANANARAMA The European Union is said to display an unhealthy concern for the curvature of bananas. This Brussels’ fetish is often paraded as proof of the EU’s Pythonesque love of silly rules. In truth, the union has no such obsession. Commission Regulation 2257/94 merely states that bananas admitted into the EU must be “free from malformation or abnormal curvature.” Malformed bananas or those with “slight defects of shape” may still enjoy access to the market and reach consumers but must do so as Class 1 or Class 2 bananas, instead of carrying the Extra Class label reserved for perfectly-shaped fruit. The regulation makes no attempts at defining of misinformation, the UK has worked itself into such a frenzy over Europe that the national debate has degraded to a shouting match – or, at best, a dialogue of the deaf.
BOMBAY MIX In a presumed case of political correctness gone awry, a British newspaper reported that EU officials demanded the UK change the name of Bombay Mix, a spicy snack of dried ingredients and presumed a favourite of Her Majesty, to Mumbai Mix in order to rid the delicacy of its colonial overtones. Predictably, the nation united in protest against this unwarranted meddling of EU officials in home affairs. Clueless as to the origin of the myth, the European Commission eventually tracked the story to the Brussels correspondent of the Daily Telegraph who thought it excellent fodder for the tabloids but failed to produce any evidence for his scoop. OFFAL TUBES The British have a well-document love of – what they consider – good food. Anyone daring to stand in between a Brit and his/her plate courts eternal damnation. Thus it was that many Brits have still not forgotten the EU’s attempts at rebranding the nation’s sausage as “emulsified high-fat offal tube.” Luckily, the plan was thwarted at the eleventh hour by a heroic government minister who stood up to the Brussels bullies and went on to immortality – and Number 10, Downing Street. His name was Jim Hacker and he starred in the television sitcom Yes Minister. As memories faded, the plot against the Great British Banger stuck and became one of the many euromyths driving public sentiment. However, the television show was not far off. Improved and more detailed food labelling practices introduced by the EU did force sausage makers to specify their products’ content of “mechanically recovered meat” – aka white slime recuperated by the grinding of carcasses and forcing the resulting slurry under high pressure through a sieve. Most sausage producers lost their appetite once the new labelling requirements came into force. depicting a dystopian world in his novel 1984, reached the same conclusion about the power of language: repeated ad nauseam, opposites switch sides – war becomes peace – in newspeak while doublethink leads to such monstrosities of phraseology as the “dictatorship of the proletariat” and other samples of the Marxist dialectic. Thus, heaping the cause all societal ills onto the perfidious eurocrats in Brussels, it eventually becomes an established truth that the EU lies at the root of all evil. 35
Cover Story
To quote, perhaps distastefully, Nazi Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels: “It would not be impossible to prove with sufficient repetition and a psychological understanding of the people concerned, that a square is, in fact, a circle. They are mere words, and words can be moulded until they clothe ideas and disguise.” George Orwell,
“abnormal curvature.” However, cucumbers are treated with considerable less leniency. As per Commission Regulation 1677/88, Extra Class and Class 1 cucumbers are allowed a bend not exceeding 10mm per 10cm length, while those falling in Class 2 may bow only twice as much.