We deserve better
Jul. 7th, 2016 10:05 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
arganoidMy latest letter to the local newspapers. I had to mangle it a bit to get it down to 250 words.
Nigel Farage stood up in the European Parliament the other day and declared "virtually none of you have ever done a proper job in your lives". It made for a good soundbite, but it was typical of his cavalier attitude to facts. Sitting directly behind Farage as he made that statement was Vytenis Andriukaitis, the Commissioner for Health and Food Safety, who was born in a Soviet gulag and campaigned against the Communists (despite the obvious risks that entailed). He studied medicine and went on to perform the first heart transplant in Lithuania. Despite this man's achievements, to Farage (who, disgustingly, said the referendum had been won ‘without a bullet being fired’) he's a caricature - a faceless 'Eurocrat'. This kind of approach pervaded the Leave campaign – lampoon a caricature of the EU and ignore anything which contradicted this. Most of the press operate on the same principle – sensationalist stories which attack the Brussels bogeymen are good for sales, even if many of the stories are misleading or plain wrong. How many voted out because the papers said there would be an EU army? It would never have happened, as we and any other EU country could have vetoed it. Same with Turkey – it’s been in accession talks for 30 years with very little progress – and even if we didn’t veto it joining (if it ever got to that stage), Cyprus or Greece would have. There are many other examples. We deserve better from our press and politicians.
Nigel Farage stood up in the European Parliament the other day and declared "virtually none of you have ever done a proper job in your lives". It made for a good soundbite, but it was typical of his cavalier attitude to facts. Sitting directly behind Farage as he made that statement was Vytenis Andriukaitis, the Commissioner for Health and Food Safety, who was born in a Soviet gulag and campaigned against the Communists (despite the obvious risks that entailed). He studied medicine and went on to perform the first heart transplant in Lithuania. Despite this man's achievements, to Farage (who, disgustingly, said the referendum had been won ‘without a bullet being fired’) he's a caricature - a faceless 'Eurocrat'. This kind of approach pervaded the Leave campaign – lampoon a caricature of the EU and ignore anything which contradicted this. Most of the press operate on the same principle – sensationalist stories which attack the Brussels bogeymen are good for sales, even if many of the stories are misleading or plain wrong. How many voted out because the papers said there would be an EU army? It would never have happened, as we and any other EU country could have vetoed it. Same with Turkey – it’s been in accession talks for 30 years with very little progress – and even if we didn’t veto it joining (if it ever got to that stage), Cyprus or Greece would have. There are many other examples. We deserve better from our press and politicians.
