I forgot to note that similarly dismissive words were spoken by Dennis McShane, Blair's minister for European Affairs and hatchet man, during the discussion on BBC radio to which i was conveyed and where I barely spoke (because Malcolm Rifkind, the senior tory, unexpected showed up).

The critical articles by Balladur and Giscard about Blair were dismissed by McShane as "a long forgotten prime minister" and "irrelevant" (or something similar) with no real comment on the substance.

Ad hominems.

Btw

His detractors want Nicolas Sarkozy, Angela Merkel and the EU's other national leaders, who choose the Council President, to pass over the most successful politician of his generation, and one of the most eloquent advocates of the fight against Islamic terrorism, for the leader of tiny Luxembourg.

Maybe the EU is not about "the fight about Islamic terorrism"?

In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes