Selling Europe at Kingston Grammar School

 This lunchtime, I was the guest speaker at the Politics Society at Kingston Grammar School (mercifully not stymied by the teachers’ strike). My brief was to put a pro-European case (something I am always happy to do), so I talked about the things that the EU has achieved over the past half century, what its potential is, and how it could be improved. Having done a number of school events around London over the past few years, I was expecting a more sceptical response, but the students were gratifyingly well informed, curious and constructive. Younger people in general, of course, are more receptive to the pan-European case, having realised not only the opportunities offered for study and work within a European single market of 500 million people, but also the fact that we live in a globalised world in which continental or sub-continental regions are going to be increasingly important.

I was interested to learn that a while back they had Gerald Batten, UKIP MEP for London, to speak to them. I met him a couple of years ago, when we both guests at some Euro-do, and he struck me as being perfectly pleasant but, as one might expect from UKIP, a bit off the wall on European realities. Apparently the Kingston students gave him quite a hard time. Gerald is of course standing for London Mayor, in the UKIP cause, which strikes me as being a hiding to nothing. But if I ran into him the street tomorrow, I would ask him: why are you as MEP running for Mayor of London? Do you think the European Parliament (for which the taxpayer is paying a lot of money for you to attend) is worthless, or do you think you will lose your European seat in 2009?