It’s Ming the trouserless...
LUKE ‘Ming’ Flanagan has shrugged off criticism after he joined an EU conference call with just a shirt and tight-fitting running shorts on.
When given the floor by the committee chair, the Midlands-North West MEP appeared sitting on his bed in a shirt and only a pair of pants on his lower half.
He laughed off the incident afterwards on social media, claiming he had just come back from a run.
The Independent MEP brushed it off with a joke, saying: ‘I hope you liked my legs.’
Joining the Agricultural Committee’s long-term budget debate, Mr Flanagan, rubbing the outside of his upper thigh, told the committee: ‘We read in some European newspapers how this money will be broken down state by state.
‘Where can MEPs get definitive information on this, rather than reading it second-hand from European journalism?’
When the camera came back to chairman Norbert Lins, he was seen smiling while his translator was heard trying to hold back laughter. The video soon circulated on Twitter.
When asked by the Irish Daily Mail if it was a fitting way to represent Ireland, Mr Flanagan replied: ‘I represent my constituents well. I would have not got reelected otherwise.’ He explained: ‘[I was] just back from a run at the beginning of the meeting. I threw on a shirt and waited for my turn to speak.’
LUKE ‘Ming’ Flanagan got his nickname because of his facial resemblance to a character from the 1930s black and white TV show Flash Gordon. ‘Ming the Merciless’ had the distinctive beard that has become the Ireland West MEP’s trademark look.
Flanagan may have missed a trick when he appeared in the European Parliament via video link yesterday, dressed in a shirt and his underpants. If Flanagan had really been in touch with the zeitgeist, given that he explained afterwards that he had been out running before the meeting, he should have been wearing a pair of O’Neill’s GAA shorts, in tribute to Paul Mescal’s role as Connell in Normal People.
But maybe that is just too modern for the man who sprang to fame defending the right to cut the turf bogs… and smoking spliffs.