Conservative leader David Cameron's flirtation with Europe's centre-right political parties continues apace. Yesterday the Tory wunderkind went to Bavaria, land of lederhosen, to rub shoulders with Edmund Stoiber, leader of Germany's Christian Social Union party and a standard bearer for the centre-right.

Cameron could not resist a dig at efforts to revive the EU's moribund constitutional treaty. The EU blueprint, declared the Conservative leader, was a "dead document". His speech at a CSU party conference allowed him to bang the eurosceptic drum, no doubt increasing his appeal to critics on the Tory right at home.