Just been to a working dinner in Brussels: nine participants, of whom six were Germans, one French, and myself and a Manxman. Discussion was of course in English, although all of ud could probably have done it in French, or indeed German.

One of the many ways in which British europhobia is so totally misguided is in failing to realise that, linguistically, anglophones are already so dominant in the EU that it is rather quaint to meet anyone who won’t do a meeting in English.