On the Fringes

I have received an election leaflet from the UK EPP, alias the Four Freedoms Party. The EPP is the mainstream centre-right bloc in the European parliament, and claims to support the "freedoms of speech and faith, freedom from want and fear" espoused by Franklin Roosevelt; which doubtless explains why the British Conservative Party abandoned it to join a rabble of Nazi nostalgists, gay-bashers and climate-change deniers. The leaflet notes that "British politicians not 'Brussels' are responsible for problems like housing shortages, educational and training shortfalls, archaic transport, aircraft carriers without planes, and substandard cancer care", and points out that "although this is not a general election, others dwell in their manifestos on issues for the British parliament to decide".

This point is proved by Labour's effort, which reiterates the various minor adjustments that the party claims it will make in order to help the precariat teeter a bit more comfortably: freezing energy prices, supplying more childcare, doing something or other with the NHS and imposing a "compulsory jobs guarantee" on the young, the feckless and the battered remains of the English language. Europe gets a single brief paragraph of forty words or so, aimed sensibly enough at "young Londoners" who must be simply itching to be compulsorily guaranteed, and pointing out the EU's economic importance; which self-evidently is far less important than striking One Nation poses over matters barely relevant to the present elections.