MR. DEEDS:

Who would have believed that, after seven years of Labour, we would be no nearer to joining the euro and still holding out for "red lines"? (John Kampfner, Jan 5, 2004, New Statesman)

Cast your mind back to the mid-1990s. With John Major s government in disarray, the centre left was learning to embrace Europe, to put the national case for closer integration. The oddball rebels on the right, with their stripy blazers and their prophecies of doom, were insisting that Britain would not ditch the pound for at least the length of a parliament. How shockingly Little England they sounded.

Now look where we are. Not even the most fervent sceptics would have imagined that come 2004, after nearly seven years of a Labour administration, the UK would be no closer to joining the euro.

If you judged him only by his actions you'd swear that Tony Blair prefers the Anglosphere to the EU, but all the smart folks tell us that's impossible....

Posted by Orrin Judd at January 7, 2005 11:29 AM