Where are women not allowed to vote?
The one country which denies the vote to women only is Kuwait, even though 70% of university graduates there are women (and we fought an expensive war to ‘liberate’ the place). Three others – Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Brunei – don’t let men or women vote, which at least has the advantage of being a non-sexist approach to the suppression of democracy. All other countries allow both sexes at least a nominal say in the occasional rigged election. The first country to give women the vote was New Zealand in 1893. In Britain, women won suffrage (the right to vote) in 1918. It’s a right everyone should use.
When did the EU ban bent bananas?
Never. Although there are regulations for the size and quality of fruit and vegetables traded internationally, nobody ever decreed that all bananas must be straight. This is one of the many myths about ‘barmy Brussels bureaucrats’ invented by certain British newspapers. You might also have read that Europe has banned lollipop ladies’ lollipops, firemen’s poles and shepherds’ crooks, not to mention corgis, cheddar cheese, smoky bacon crisps, milk bottles, mushy peas, swings and rocking horses. All lies. Nor has the EU ever told tightrope walkers to wear hard hats or lorry drivers to eat muesli for breakfast, suggested that Trafalgar Square and Waterloo Station are renamed to save offending the French or that mountains have warning signs saying ‘High Up’, or claimed that kilts should be labelled ‘women’s wear’.
