Daniel Hannan

Saturday

Daniel Hannan

The way ahead for Europe

Join me in a little thought experiment. For several months now, Tony Blair has been insisting that the European constitution would be a defeat for Euro-federalism. Within hours of appending his name to it, he announced that, far from creating a superstate, the constitution was about ‘sovereign nation-states co-operating together’. Let us play along with the Prime Minister for a moment. Let us imagine that he really has seen off the Euro-zealots and protected the supremacy of national governments. What, in these circumstances, might we reasonably expect the constitution to contain? First, there would be a proper division of powers.

Saturday

Daniel Hannan

Our son of a bitch

President Karimov is a ruthless tyrant, says Daniel Hannan, but he supports the war on terror and is backed by the West. He shouldn’t be A strange little row has been bubbling away over the past two months concerning our ambassador to Tashkent. You may have seen the odd headline about it in the inside pages of the broadsheets but, unless you have a particular interest in diplomatic affairs, I suspect your eye will quickly have skipped on to the next story. Why, after all, should we be especially interested in Uzbekistan? A tremendously important region for Britain during the Great Game, of course, but hardly of vital strategic interest today.

Saturday

Daniel Hannan

Why can’t the English be more like the French?

We all know what 'vigorous exchange of views' means. But rarely can a summit have ended with both sides boasting that their chap managed to get some juicy insults past the other fellow. Reading the press coverage on both sides of the Channel, a cartoon-like picture emerges. One imagines Tony Blair and Jacques Chirac like two Asterix characters, purple with rage, leaning towards each other with their noses squashed together. This is not the first Anglo-French diplomatic row, of course. Lord Palmerston, on being told by his counterpart that the English had no word equivalent to the French 'sensibilitZ', replied, 'Yes we have: humbug.