Europe burns; and Tony Blair heads for Washington. That's unfair. A bit. The timing of the visit by the British prime minister to George W. Bush's White House is coincidental. But impressions count. As his government formally suspended the ratification process for the European Union's constitutional treaty, the juxtaposition looked awkward at best.

Last week's rejection of the treaty by voters in France and the Netherlands was greeted in London by the we-told-you-so smirks at which the British establishment excels. Mr Blair was taking a break in Tuscany. But Jack Straw, the foreign secretary, struggled to contain his delight. Even before the Dutch had added a Nee to the French Non, Mr Straw was telling all and sundry that the constitution was dead. Douglas Alexander, the European affairs minister, weighed in with characteristic British modesty to suggest that all would be well again only when the rest of the continent embraced the British economic model.