The EU and my Aga dream

I've always wanted a red Aga, says Merryn Somerset Webb. But EU rules say I can't have one, and the "democratic deficit" means there's no real way of changing that. Unless our relationship is radically redefined, I'll be voting "out".

I've always wanted an Aga. And for sentimental reasonsI have always wanted that Aga to be red. However, as I have also always lived in cities with kitchens a tad too small to justify devoting wall space to an oven withoutan effective hob, I've never had one.

Last year, Aga read my mind and introduced the utterly gorgeous Aga City60. It's half the size of a normal Aga and, if I do the rest of my kitchen remodelling at Ikea, I can run to one. Hooray. Now the bad news: it comes in many colours, but not red. Why not? Because the EU directive on Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) says that all cast-iron appliances that use electricity (but not gas) must be 100% recyclable. The red paint Aga uses has a tiny bit of cadmium in it. That can't be fully recycled which means you can't have an electric Aga in red.

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Merryn Somerset Webb

Merryn Somerset Webb started her career in Tokyo at public broadcaster NHK before becoming a Japanese equity broker at what was then Warburgs. She went on to work at SBC and UBS without moving from her desk in Kamiyacho (it was the age of mergers).

After five years in Japan she returned to work in the UK at Paribas. This soon became BNP Paribas. Again, no desk move was required. On leaving the City, Merryn helped The Week magazine with its City pages before becoming the launch editor of MoneyWeek in 2000 and taking on columns first in the Sunday Times and then in 2009 in the Financial Times

Twenty years on, MoneyWeek is the best-selling financial magazine in the UK. Merryn was its Editor in Chief until 2022. She is now a senior columnist at Bloomberg and host of the Merryn Talks Money podcast -  but still writes for Moneyweek monthly. 

Merryn is also is a non executive director of two investment trusts – BlackRock Throgmorton, and the Murray Income Investment Trust.