Calculated assault

Date: 18/07/1996

Sir James Goldsmith's ability to win headlines and influence people is getting under the skin of one British Labour MEP in whose constituency the billionaire with a French Euro-seat intends to field an anti-EU candidate in the next UK general election.

David Hallam was so annoyed that he issued a press release which did not beat about the bush. “I am getting increasingly fed up and dismayed at the attention given to my fellow member of the European Parliament Sir James Goldsmith,” it began.

Hallam went on to claim that Goldsmith was a less-than-dedicated representative, who had “popped in” to plenaries on only 14 occasions out of 142 full sessions since the last elections. This is an attendance rate of 9.9&percent; says Hallam, whose calculator has also thrown up the intriguing statistic that Goldsmith's 'productivity rate' in votes is just 3.3&percent;, having voted 43 times out of a possible 1,283 recorded votes so far - a splendid way of monitoring Euro MPs' output.

Hallam pointed out that Goldsmith was one of the few MEPs who was “not a full member of any committee”.

Goldsmith, he claimed, was “too busy making money and trouble elsewhere” to take part in a democratic institution, adding that the Europe of Nations MEP should “buck up or shut up”.

There you are, David Hallam, MEP for Shropshire, your publicity quotient has just soared by an estimated 100&percent; - but you still have a long way to go to catch Sir James.