The true scale to which Britain sits at "the top table of Europe", as the Government love to claim, is finally becoming clear today. In Brussels our supposed friends are openly snubbing us, and in Westminster our own Government are discovering their own powerlessness.
After a few days of gloating from the Prime Minister that he managed to get notable nonentity Baroness Ashton appointed as EU Foreign Minister, Her Anonymousness has now made perfectly clear the reality of her role and her intentions, by telling a committee of MEPs that
"I won't be an extension of the British government. I have been appointed by the 27 member states."
Meanwhile, Alistair Darling is reduced to begging the new Single Market Commissioner Michel Barnier in the pages of The Times not to wreck the City with overly aggressive regulation.
This is the reality of our relationship with our "EU partners". We're not sitting at the top table at all, we are picking up the crumbs underneath it.
