I was very amused by this tweet from former Liberal Democrat MEP for Yorkshire and the Humber Edward McMillan-Scott.
I’m banned from #Russia again – first time since 1972! #45 on the hit list http://t.co/JF02rAkumF
— Ed McMillan-Scott (@emcmillanscott) May 29, 2015
If you look at the list, you’ll see that Edward, who was a powerful voice for human rights in the European Parliament, is viewed as more dangerous than Sir Malcolm Rifkind who was chair of the Intelligence and Security Committee. Edward is at 45 and Rifkind is 16 places further down at 61. It shows off your values when you are more horrified by people who want your citizens to have rights than someone who’s scrutinising the people who might be spying on you.
Edward is not the only dangerous liberal on that list, though:
Trumping both of these two are #27, Nick Clegg and #10 Guy Verhofstadt, the leader of the ALDE group in the European Parliament.
I’m sure that they will all see their ban as a badge of honour.
* Caron Lindsay is Editor of Liberal Democrat Voice and blogs at Caron's Musings. You can find her on Bluesky at caronmlindsay.bsky.social
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So the most dangerous person in the UK, as far as Putin is concerned, is the MP for Ludlow, Phillip Dunne – number 18 on the list. I think him being minister for defence procurement has something to do with it.
But I don’t seem able to find David Cameron there,,, perhaps advocating the scrapping of the Human Rights Act means Putin is more comfortable with his approach…
I rather love this placement of Ed McMillan Scott on Putin’s list. I spoke alongside him and Benazir Bhutto at a meeting in Bradford some years back when Ed was still a Tory MEP. His rather crumpled suit and gentle mode of expression made him seem totally out of place as a Conservative of the time and I did not recognise him then as he approached the stage, as the person who was going to speak next.. If Putin is afraid of this elderly gentleman then he has every reason to be afraid of his own people.
When I went to Russia many years ago when it was still part of he Soviet Union, I was rather upset that they totally ignored the ‘Solidarity’ badge worn proudly on my lapel throughout the 10 day holiday. But my suit was not crumpled!
Hmm, the list is almost in alphabetical order of surname – I wonder if it’s just alphabetical when transliterated into Cyrillic?
I can hear Nick now, ‘am I bothered.?’
Let us not forget that Nick has Russian ancestry
How do I apply to join this list?