Amid the deluge of bewilderingly long and indigestible political manifestos, that of Sweden's Pirate Party was refreshingly brief - an internet file-sharing free-for-all, a ban on monitoring emails and the abolition of patents. Standing on essentially a single issue might have seemed like cloud-cuckoo land but the Scandinavian fringe party picked up more than 7 per cent of the Swedish vote at the weekend, capturing a seat in the European Parliament. Not bad going for a bunch of pirates who have only been around for three years and whose supporters dub them the "geek" party. "Last night, we gained political credibility," founder Rick Falkvinge, 37, told BBC radio. "The establishment is trying to prevent control of knowledge and culture slipping from their grasp. People were not taken in."
Amid the deluge of bewilderingly long and indigestible political manifestos, that of Sweden's Pirate Party was refreshingly brief - an internet file-sharing free-for-all, a ban on monitoring emails and the abolition of patents. Standing on essentially a single issue might have seemed like cloud-cuckoo land but the Scandinavian fringe party picked up more than 7 per cent of the Swedish vote at the weekend, capturing a seat in the European Parliament.
Not bad going for a bunch of pirates who have only been around for three years and whose supporters dub them the "geek" party.
"Last night, we gained political credibility," founder Rick Falkvinge, 37, told BBC radio. "The establishment is trying to prevent control of knowledge and culture slipping from their grasp. People were not taken in."
