Why all this unseemly haste to drag us into a United States of Europe?

THE draft constitution of the European Union, temporarily sidelined and awaiting a Bertie-stroke to resurrect it, proposes ‘unity in diversity’ as the motto of the new 25-member EU.

But "shut up and sign here" might summarise better what the European project is about at the moment.

The good news is, of course, enlargement. New life for the economies of eastern Europe, and new hope for its people.