Brown

IMHO, a sad day for Europe. The Lisbon treaty will "federalize" Europe and take away a lot of the powers from sovereign nations .. RIP Europe!

Europe’s elite celebrated the imminent arrival of its first president last night as the last lingering resistance to the Lisbon treaty fell away with the stroke of a pen in Prague.

European leaders wasted no time in starting the process to choose their new president from a range of names including Tony Blair. Fredrik Reinfeldt, the Prime Minister of Sweden, which holds the EU presidency, began a round of telephone diplomacy to determine a shortlist of names.

Flint's 'window dressing' attack

Former Europe Minister Caroline Flint has launched a blistering attack on Gordon Brown for treating women ministers as "female window dressing".

Ms Flint is angry that she stood by Mr Brown but he failed to promote her to full cabinet minister status.

She accused Mr Brown of running a "two-tier" government with an "inner" cabinet circle.

She is being replaced by ex MEP Glenys Kinnock, wife of former Labour leader Neil, who will enter the Lords.

Here is the full text of Ms Flint's resignation letter.

"Dear Gordon,

I believe the achievements of the Labour Government to date have been monumental and you have played an immense part in the creation of those achievements.