EYNTKA...

Everything you need to know about Jean-Claude Juncker

First, the pronunciation: as everyone outside America knows, the first part is not pronounced Gene, but Zhon. Good. The more luxuriance and pursing of the lips, the more it sounds as if you don't approve of foreign names, even for foreigners.

It's the second part that seems to get people, particularly the BBC. They are giving us the anglicised Claud, whereas the approach ought to be coherent, Gene-Claud or Zhon-Clode.

Juncker, more commonly Junker, is an old Northern European honorific for landed gentry.

So J-C's name is roughly the same as J.C.Squire, the 20th century essayist and poet, who was a bit of a boozer.

J-C has been getting a bit of a rough time in the British Press recently. For myself I think Europe is safer in the hands of a man who likes a drop to drink, and I confess I couldn't come up with stuff like 'Europe is a modern, dynamic economy' without a couple of sharpeners after breakfast.

J-C is a fairly common stereotype on the mainland: cutting through all the debate about centralisation, they mistrust the nation state and feel that putting everyone together under the benign governance of people too important to be merely elected is the optimal political system. Of course J-C would be one of these Lords. Of course.

This view, and it is important to recognise that it is widespread, stems in part from World War II and in part from a recognition that the direction of travel (towards a united Europe) would be interrupted if the electorate got grumpy (as now).

Whatever its merits or demerits it is clear that this is not our system.

So rejecting Zhon-Clode was merely picking a fight. Merkel and the rest knew that they could, if necessary, pick someone else with the exact same mindset.

What this episode has shown is that the fundamental point, that Europe should be run by an unelected élite, and that national power should be kept to a minimum, is something they are not going to back down on.

Our choice is simple.