High spirits and weighty arguments

Date: 25/06/1998

It is a general rule of thumb that there is little love lost between one-time political allies who subsequently fall out.

The lesson was again brought home this week when the rotund and jolly Hugh Kerr MEP - formerly of the British Labour Party and now of the Greens - launched a mild attack on UK Prime Minister Tony Blair's EU record.

Speaking in the European Parliament immediately after fellow Labour dissident Ken Coates, who is now a member of the European United Left, Kerr introduced himself as “the other ghost at the feast of the British presidency”.

After he had spoken, the dry-humoured Scottish Labour MEP David Martin, chairing the debate, said sotto voce: “Thanks to Europe's best-fed ghost.”

Blair chuckled, but Entre Nous wonders whether the comment appeared in the official parliamentary minutes.