Farage familiar with Arsenic. A silly electioneering letter to today's DT.

In today's DT, 20th Oct, there is printed a brief letter from Nigel Farage that I reproduce below:

Sir,

Bob Pearson tells us we must be familiar with metric measurements and by extension we must be legally forced to use them. I am familiar with arsenic but choose not to take it.

Nigel Farage MEP (Ukip)

Westerham,

Kent

The second sentence of this letter on the surface is very silly. His claim to be familiar with arsenic would worry me greatly if I were one of his close associates. Clearly the letter was printed as he is an MEP. The extension mentioned is not in Pearson's letter.

What is in Pearson's letter is 'Regulation of these matters by the EU has been remarkably cautious and the EU's plan to enforce metric only labels and ban any supplementary indicators (imperial measurements) has been abolished.' Exactly! Three years ago, pre Lisbon, the EU did some market research that showed metric measures were deeply unpopular in the UK. The EU, no fools they, immediately rowed back on imposing metric measures solely on food etc.

This is why Farage chose this topic. He knows it resonates hugely with UKIP's grass roots who largely read the DT.That his letter is published alongside another equally silly letter from a Shaun Priestly supporting Imperial measures and under the same headline, 'Imperial beats metric in the logic stakes' is even better. Mr Priestly gets metricisation mixed up with decimalisation.


The Kent address at the end is a nice final touch and implies he is UK based. So much better than a Brussels address where Nigel spends a great deal of time.

Its an astute electoral move by Nigel that will play well with the UKIP voters. Tim and Gerard better get their skates on and get something in the DT and Daily Mail quick!