The Spectator’s Notes | 10 December 2011

The last week has been bracing for me, because I have had many interesting encounters with Europhiles. Visiting Spain, I met the former prime minister, José María Aznar. In Paris, I interviewed Jacques Delors, the grand architect of the single currency. Back home, I studied the speech in Berlin by my old friend Radek Sikorski, now the Polish foreign minister, and debated with our weekend guest David Frum, the leading American journalist, who despite being eurosceptical believes that the euro must be saved. All these thoughtful people believe in European civilisation, and they are horrified by its precariousness if the eurozone breaks up. Sikorski rightly says that a currency is a matter of trust, and therefore a moral entity: its breakdown is a moral catastrophe. Their serious engagement with the issue contrasts with the British Cabinet, which this week held one of its publicity-stunt, round-the-country meetings in Ipswich, and put obesity top of the agenda.