T he Kaczynski twins should not, of course, have mentioned the war. The European Union works on the convention that nobody is so rude as to bring the -second world war to the table.

So when Jaroslaw Kaczynski, the Polish prime minister, supported by his brother Lech, proposed boosting Warsaw's voting rights to account for its war dead there was consternation at the recent Brussels summit. Jean-Claude Juncker, the Luxembourg prime minister, spoke for many west Europeans when he said: "You have to jump to the present. You will not be happy in the long run if you are always looking in the rearview mirror."