MEPs. Low profile

British Euro-MPs: unloved and obscure

IT IS a hard sell when so few know or care what you do. Still, it's odd that Britain's 87 members of the European Parliament (MEPs) have managed to stay quite so firmly out of the public eye.

A database search of national quality newspapers over the five-year lifetime of the parliament shows only three MEPs - Labour's Glenys Kinnock, the Liberal Democrat Chris Huhne, and the Greens' Caroline Lucas - achieving more than 100 mentions. The vast majority received only half that, and more than a quarter managed only single figures, of which two - Elspeth Attwooll, a Scottish Liberal Democrat, and Gordon Adam, a Labour MEP from north-east England - scored zero. By contrast, Robin Cook, a former foreign secretary, gained 8,545 - over three times the MEPs' total.

It's crude, of course, and there are mitigating circumstances: many MEPs, especially in Scotland or Wales, will find local papers a better bet than London-based ones. But it is hard to avoid the conclusion that some have been simply lazy - or that what they do is too dull to interest anyone in the real world.

Mr Huhne, an articulate former economics commentator with 168 mentions, blames journalists too: he cites a BBC radio discussion on the European Parliament which featured not MEPs, but three Westminster MPs. Densmore Dover, a Conservative from north-west England (who gained two mentions), says his work on the budget committee, although important, “doesn't grab a lot of people”. Sad, but true.

Feature on the low profile of UK MEPs in the national consciousness and media.

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