THOSE POLITICIANS

I sometimes dispare at politicians, all of them both in Britain and Spain. The other day I was watching a live debate in the British parliament over spending cuts to the BBC World Service. Now, I am old enough, (unfortunately!) to remember when the BBC World Service was a real life-line for expatriates living in Majorca, so the debate was of interest.

A Labour member of parliament, who campaigned for the socialists at the last local elections in Calvia, was criticising the government over the cuts. He said that it was a great shame that foreign language services, especially those in Polish, were being cut because they had helped with his release when he had been arrested in Poland during a pro-democracy march. When he had finished his bitter attack, William Hague, the foreign secretary stood up to reply.

He said that the cuts to the World Service had to be made and he reminded his Labour colleague that it had been his party which had cut the Polish language programmes not the coalition. The red-faced Labour MP looked rather crest-fallen as he had basically scored an own goal. Whoops, before speaking, especially in parliament best to get your facts right. Otherwise you risk making a complete fool of yourself and also hurting your own credibility.