Every Picture Tells a Story
I watched some of the recent press conference given by the current chancellor, George Osborne, and his two old sparring partners in the last Westminster Parliament, Labour's Ed Balls and the Lib Dems Vince Cable.
The event was hosted by Ryanair, the low cost airline which has helped revolutionise travel in Europe, but the key political message was that tribal party politics need to be set aside when big issues of the day are at stake.
Yet the new leader of the Labour Party, Jeremy Corbyn, refuses to share a platform on Europe with David Cameron because he is a Tory Prime Minister, despite the fact that Jezza has been perfectly happy over the years to speak publicly alongside representatives of organisations like Hamas, for example.
The same is true of the SNP leader, Nicola Sturgeon, who maintains a similar Tory-free zone approach to public speaking while demanding a 'positive' debate about the UK's continued membership of the Europe Union.
Sounds rather odd and a bit churlish if you ask me, especially when you consider that Nicola shared a platform with Tommy Sheridan at a local 'hustings' event during the Scottish Parliament election campaign, despite Mr Sheridan being convicted of perjury in a Scottish court and sentenced to three years in prison.
Meanwhile, away from the crazy world of party politics, Ryanair's chief executive Michael O'Leary gave his usual barnstorming performance in a TV interview at the Osborne, Balls, Cable event in which he emphasised that the continued membership of the EU was crucial to for jobs and inward investment.
Good for him.
