Graham's blog entry 27th April 2007

Published on Fri 27th Apr 2007

Francois Bayrou, our Liberal candidate in the French Presidential election, scored a respectable 18.7% last Sunday. It is the highest third party vote in France in over a quarter of a century. I was with Romano Prodi in Bologna as the results came in and we rang to congratulate him.

I'd been in Italy on Sunday to give the blessing of Europe's Liberals and Democrats to the merger of our Lib Dem 'Margherita' Party - and the Socialist Party - into a new 'Democratic Party' in Italy. Howard Dean, Chair of the US Democrats, was also there to pledge their support. The creation of a centre-left progressive party has been Prodi's dream all along and it owes its existence to his doggedness. I hope it works. One plus one in politics rarely makes two.

Parliament convened in Strasbourg on Monday, allowing me the chance to raise at the opening of business the ban on my colleagues and I speaking in Singapore ten days earlier. Our President (the equivalent of the Speaker at Westminster) undertook to write formally to the President of the Commission and the Secretary General of the Council of Ministers to ask them to make a formal protest. I will milk this one for all it is worth to embarrass the autocratic Lee family who strangle freedom in Singapore.

On Tuesday morning I travelled from Strasbourg to Weston-super-Mare for the funeral of Cllr Alan Hockridge, our leader on North Somerset UA, who died on 14 April of a heart attack at age 63. He leaves a widow, Carol, and a married daughter and recent granddaughter. Alan was a Councillor for 14 years and will be sorely missed. A natural leader, his enthusiasm was infectious and his good nature rarely inevident. The oration at his funeral was delivered skilfully and tenderly by a long standing rugby friend of Alan's: sadly, however, it glossed over his fourteen years of active political life as if they were of little consequence. I suspect Alan would have placed a higher importance on his political work.

It is just possible under current airline schedules to leave Strasbourg for Bristol at 0715 hrs and to be back just after midnight. It involves four flights and a two hour car journey; but since I had to lead for us in the debate on transatlantic relations at nine o'clock on Wednesday morning it was the only way. There will be an EU-US summit in Washington DC on 30 April and I wanted to throw in my tupp'orth of advice to those who will represent us. For my speech, see http://www.grahamwatsonmep.org/news/000366.html)

Wednesday morning was dominated, however, by the news that the Polish government is to revoke the European Parliament mandate of one of its MEPs, Bronislaw Geremek. Using a highly controversial 'lustration' (or 'monitoring') law which was forced through the Polish Sejm a couple of months ago - and which is currently being challenged in their constitutional court - the electoral agency has revoked Geremek's mandate because he refused to sign a statement declaring that he has never collaborated with the communist-era security services. Bronislaw Geremek, who was one of the leaders of Solidarnosc and has been a government minister, has signed similar declarations on at least three previous occasions, but objects on moral grounds to signing again because he considers the law to be a witch-hunt against former Communists. Since he is a member of my Group I had to rise in the Chamber to announce the news and seek parliament's support in defending his right to continue to sit in Strasbourg. In a rare piece of good luck I was delayed in a lift and arrived too late to do this at nine o'clock, so I had to use the next opportunity, just before the votes at eleven thirty. Had I raised it at nine it would have fallen flat: there were not more than thirty members in the Chamber. But at 1130 the House was full, so to long and sustained applause in favour of one of Europe's best known intellectuals and Polish freedom fighters I was able to lambast the Polish government's actions with almost the whole House cheering me on. Whichever power delayed the lift, terrestrial or celestial, allowed me to make a little piece of history.

Parliament voted this week on a package of seven pieces of legislation in which I have recently taken a great deal of interest. They are known as the Maritime Safety Package and seek gradually to raise standards of safety and accident compensation in shipping to those we require in the aviation industry. With the MSC Napoli still stranded in Lyme Bay, having cost Devon residents over half a million pounds thus far, I was pleased to see the measures adopted.

Last night I spoke at a 'Talkschool' international education conference in Hambridge, Somerset. Today I will be local election campaigning in Taunton and North Devon; tomorrow in Bath and North East Somerset; on Monday in South East Cornwall and South Somerset and on Tuesday in Poole and Bournemouth. In between times on Sunday I address a conference in Plymouth on the future governance of the EU and I hope to find time to take my 12 year old son canoeing.