Will Hutton, former Observer editor and author of the 1995 best-selling (though highly flawed) political analysis The State We’re In – a genius or pretentious arse depending on your point of view – argues in his old paper that Europe is in severe trouble.

“It could all turn ugly; an unratified European Constitution, stagnating economies, new dark nationalist politics and a fragmenting European Union.

“To imagine that Britain will be immune from this is absurd; what happens in mainland Europe will directly impact upon us as it has throughout our history. What is needed is an understanding that if European states don’t hang together they will hang separately – and that because the European Union is the best we have, we’d better make it work.”

Oh, and more Russian aftermath – a sensible question from Dutch Foreign Minister Bernard Bot about how the massacre was allowed to take place prompted rabid vitriol from his Russian opposite number, Sergey Lavrov, who accused Bot of “blasphemy”. The rest of the EU’s foreign ministers currently seem to be scrabbing around to salvage the situation. Joy.