Environmentalists watching the protest spread right across Europe wait in trepidation to see whether most EU leaders will take the Blair or the Jospin route. The fear is that the US will just laugh at a shamefaced Europe, where country after country has caved in at the first challenge. By chance this is the government's Flood Action Week, warning that global warming means a 10-fold flood increase this century. Denmark is now the world's manufacturer of windmills, not us, though we have half of all Europe's wind potential. Margaret Thatcher's deadly political instinct recognised the car as her great ally, her symbol of individual selfishness.
New Labour has yet to find an eloquent language or attractive policies to tackle it.
Now it must.