He left out a couple of hundred years

In today's Wall Street Journal Europe (subs. req'd), Daniel Freedman criticises what he sees as the UK's unusually broad definition of who is eligible to vote. And indeed, people used to the idea that only citizens can vote will be surprised to read, as on this official site,

To vote in parliamentary elections in the UK you must be a British citizen, a citizen of another Commonwealth country or of the Irish Republic, as well as being resident in the UK, aged 18 or over, included in the register of electors for the constituency and not subject to any legal incapacity to vote.

Freedman complains that this opens up a potentially vast pool of non-citizen voters who could swing an election. But the trick is the requirement of residency. Commonwealth citizens can't just show up and live in the UK -- there are visa and work requirements to comply with. Now this is where things really were different for Irish citizens, who have had an unlimited right to reside and work in the UK since Independence.

In fact these rights are now supposed to exist throughout the European Union, so Freedman should be more worked up about the prospect, God forbid, of French residents of the UK tipping an election. Anyway, we hope that you laugh, as we did, at this exchange reported in his article:

Asked why he could cast the ballot in Britain last week, one Irishman angrily told me: "600 years of oppression is why."

We'd like to know how he identified this Irishman, not least because the stock phrase is a bit off, since we usually talk about "800 years." Or, to keep the clock rolling, 1169 and counting.