Daily Mail Leader, 9th September 2008

If only, Valéry ...

FOR once, the Mail can agree with Valéry Giscard d'Estaing, who drafted the rejected EU Constitution.

Britain, he says, should be granted 'special status' in the EU to prevent us from 'acting as a brake' on closer integration among our partners.

What a brilliant idea! (And why not start by letting us opt out of the extra £8billion we'll have to contribute to the EU because of the pound's weakness?) But the former French president seems to need reminding that it wasn't the British who voted against his empirebuilding Constitution. It was the Irish, the Dutch and - sacre bleu! - his own fellow countrymen.

The scandal is that our Government signed up to it without even asking us.