Our small platoons have done the whole of Europe one big favour

CONFESSION being good for the soul, I admit to being slightly off the mark last week. True, I predicted a no to Lisbon, predicted the usual suspects would call the Irish thickos and ungrateful illegitimates, and even forecast the Taoiseach would start talking about the need for “a period of reflection”.

Where I was wrong was in expecting the British, the Swedes and the Czechs to halt their treaty ratification processes. Officially, the strategy is to press ahead — buy more time — and address ‘the Irish problem’ down the line. So I admit it: I underestimated the arrogance of the European elites. I gave them too much credit. How dare the robbing Irish jeopardise the Eurocrats’ best-laid plans? Seeing the glass half full, though, we have come a long way since last Friday when the Germans, the Italians and the Croatians were all for putting the Irish people on a cattle truck out of the whole European Union.

Frank-Walter Steinmeier, the German foreign minister and a man who personifies bureaucratic bloat, was all for kicking Ireland out there and then. Amusingly, the polls in Germany suggest that it is actually Herr Steinmeier and his party who are heading for a good kicking. The Italian president, Giorgio Napolitano, was singing the same tune: arrivederci Irlanda. For the record, he is an 82-year-old communist and, therefore, has a long history of being wrong.