Former Green Party chief Carla Denyer has been mocked after wrongly stating {that a} European capital is in Russia. The Green MP for Bristol Central was showing on a Christmas particular of University Challenge when her response to a query left host Amol Rajan in stitches.
Rajan had requested the Durham University alumni group: “Now the most populous city north of the Arctic Circle, which Russian city was founded on the Kola Peninsula in the 1910s to serve as a naturally ice-free seaport for the country?”
After a group member wrongly urged that the reply could be the Belarusian capital Minsk, to which one other concurred, Denyer gave the unusual reply, prompting laughter from these in attendance.
Rajan replied: “Minsk is the capital of Belarus. It’s Murmansk that we’re after.”
Despite the embarrassing gaffe, Durham went on to say victory however many on-line questioned whether or not a serving MP ought to have a greater grasp on geography given Belarus’ essential function within the ongoing Ukraine struggle.
One tweeted: “Carla Denyer MP, until recently leader of the Greens, was on University Challenge last night and she didn’t know where Minsk was.
“Am I being unreasonable in thinking that seems like a pretty big knowledge gap for *a party leader* given events in Ukraine over the last four years?”
Another added: “I find it remarkable that there are still people who expect MPs to know anything. The default value for most MPs these days – with a very few exceptions – is profound ignorance.”
Others pointed to the century’s outdated shut relationship between Russia and Belarus as a mitigating issue within the blunder.
Minsk was absorbed into the Russian Empire in 1793 after the Second Partition of Poland and remained beneath Russian management for greater than a century, till the upheavals of the Russian Revolution reshaped the area.
In the aftermath of the First World War, town emerged because the capital of Soviet Belarus, a standing it retained all through the Soviet interval. Minsk remained carefully tied to Moscow till 1991, when Belarus grew to become an impartial state following the collapse of the Soviet Union.
In fashionable tradition, Minsk grew to become a widely known reference within the hit sitcom Friends, when Phoebe’s boyfriend moved to town for work, along with his colleague describing it as “in Russia”.
Denyer served as co-leader of the Greens till 2025 and has seen the social gathering rise in reputation beneath the stewardship of her successor Zack Polanski.
https://www.express.co.uk/news/politics/2152810/ex-green-party-leader-humiliated-tv