Big, Wrinkled and Hairy

Tony Robinson the affable (and if I may be so bold as to say, short) press officer for the Socialist Group in the European Parliament has it appears, and in a technical sense, dropped a bollock. Immediately after the announcement that the hard right nationalist Identity, Tradition and Sovereignty had imploded due to its Romanian section storming off after a few choice words from Ms Mussolini about Romanians in Italy he sent out a press release,

"NEWS FROM THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT SOCIALIST GROUP

14 November
2007: Contact Tony Robinson +32-XXXXXXXXXX
www.socialistgroup.eu

APPLAUSE GREETS COLLAPSE OF FAR RIGHT
GROUP OF EURO MPs

Socialist Euro MPs today welcomed an official announcement of the collapse of a far-right group of Euro MPs whose members include the grand-daughter of Mussolini.

After the Parliament president declared that the once 24-strong Independence and Democracy Group no longer existed, Socialist Group leader Martin Schulz said:

"We are happy that this group, which does not belong in European democracy, has been dissolved.

"The good news is that the International of the ultra-nationalists no longer exists and cannot use the money of the European taxpayer to support its xenophobia and neo-fascism."

The announcement by acting parliament president Edward McMillan Scott that the Group is dissolved with immediate effect was greeted by sustained applause in the
Strasbourg parliamentary chamber.

end

The problem is that he got the name of the group wrong, and was thus suggestion that people like Jens-Peter Bonde and Nigel Farage were xenophobic and neo-fascist. Now of course Mr Schulz does think that, and he would be delighted that the legitimate voice of Euroscepticism could be closed down however for now I think a grovelling apology will suffice.