Do MEPs wash? Apparently not. First we had the brouhaha some years ago about members sleeping in the Strasbourg Parliament and pocketing the overnight allowances. It was possible because each individual office has a full bathroom, so the building can be turned into an hotel if the Parliament ever pulls out of the city.
This week, The European Voice reports that MEPs have been told to shower more often but, it's quick to state, it is not a reflection of concern about standards of personal hygiene. Apparently the showers installed at huge expense in each office of the Leopold Building in Brussels are starting to scale up and leak through lack of use. The president of the Parliament, Jose Maria Gil-Robles has consequently asked members to try to shower a least a few times each month.
MEPs who spoke to Quidnunc this week are less than pleased at being held up to ridicule over what they see as yet more nonsense. As if the quagmire of their salaries and expenses being splashed over the papers every week isn't enough, they are now being accused of being dirty too. They stay in hotels or apartments in Brussels, they say, as they do everywhere else, and don't need showers at work - they are far too busy on European matters to spend office time grooming themselves. And why don't we hacks write about the dangers to their health from all that air travel? Didn't we read about clean air? And so on and so on.
Nerves are a bit frayed. Elections are in June.