NEVER MIND THE VOTERS...

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If it's Sunday it must be The Record: Europe and more on lovely Shirin Wheeler's unfair interviewing. This week's example can't really compare to some of her most egregious performances, but it's still typical.
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Her gathering of politicians this week consisted of a Labour MEP, a Dutch Green, a Fine Gael MEP and a British Conservative. Anyone watching would have surely noticed that the British Tory was being sidelined. Counting how long each guest got to shine shows the extent of the problem:
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Gay Mitchell (Fine Gael) - 4 minutes 15 seconds
Michael Cashman (Labour) - 3 minutes 55 seconds
Judith Sargentini (Dutch Green) - 2 minutes 27 seconds
Nirj Deva (Conservative) - 1 minute 53 seconds
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To compound this unfairness, Shirin twice stopped Mr Deva from interrupting (though he himself was interrupted every time he spoke!). His first failed attempt was met with "Let Michael finish and then..." and his second failed attempt was greeted by "Let Judith answer the question first." Then when all three other guests piled in on him, Shirin stopped them only to let one of them continue!
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It's not easy being a right-of-centre politician on The Record: Europe.
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Later on the programme Shirin talked to Bruno Waterfield of The Daily Telegraph (good man), Antonio Missiroli of the pro-European think tank The European Policy Centre and a man called Richard Corbett, styled as "advisor to the EU Council president" (ie. Rumpsy). Now, as all you keen Euroland-watchers will know, Mr Corbett was the NE Labour MEP (much admired by the Beeb's Mark Mardell) who lost his seat last year to the BNP, and who used to lead the Labour group in the European parliament. Now that's Euroland for you! You get booted out by the voters and yet within a matter of months you're flying high again, advising the never-elected President of the United States of Europe! Isn't the EU great?!
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