Leader: Savaging the Euro-sceptics

"Come on in, Sir Geoffrey's on sparkling form tonight," was the famous entry for a New Statesman competition which asked for words to chill the heart on arrival at a party. But Sir Geoffrey, now Lord Howe, was indeed on sparkling form yesterday, suggesting that he might not vote Tory if there was much more of this Euro-sceptic nonsense.

Leave aside the fact that, as a peer, he doesn't have a vote. Once the architect of monetarism, then a dead sheep, Lord Howe has completed another metamorphosis into the sort of principled pro-European we want to support. A welcome guest indeed.