DJ: Is it a problem for Eurosceptics that the Americans have tended to support the EU? They rather like having only one person to telephone in Europe.

DH-A: It's perfectly true that America, being a federal republic, is drawn to the idea of a similar one in Europe, and they initially supported that as a bulwark against communism. But thoughtful Americans know quite well that their real allies in Europe would have less influence when it's not the friend from the Foreign Office in London that is making the decisions, but the bureaucrat and the commissioner in Brussels, on behalf of a great many other countries, some of whom have a desire to reduce the importance of the Atlantic alliance.

DJ: Jay, do you think anybody is actually prepared to die for Europe? I mean, when we talk about defence, you obviously think it's a great thing that Europe is now becoming sovereign in that way, but are young men and women really prepared to fight for Europe — has it yet become that powerful an ideal, or a loyalty?

PPR: I would have thought as much as they're prepared to fight and die for Nato, quite honestly, our soldiers in Afghanistan...

DJ: But our soldiers die for Queen and country, don't they?

PPR: I would be very surprised if the soldiers in Afghanistan, although they are told they are fighting for British interests, are feeling, as in the war in Iraq, that they are really fighting for their country. They're fighting because they're professional soldiers in the army, and if that's what they're told to do they'll do it. As General Sir John Hackett once told me, "A soldier's first loyalty is to his regiment."

DH-A: Jay, let me ask you a question; does Europe to you live as a political, social and cultural entity, of which you feel part?

PPR: Yes.

DH-A: Because I think that young people regard themselves as part of a much wider world and I think that language is a great determinant here. You are a novelist, your mode of thought is Continental, it certainly is in your books, but you write mostly in the English language — do you not feel part of a cultural and linguistic sphere that is non-European? I certainly feel that, at that popular cultural level, America still means more to people here than any attempt to create an equivalent in Europe. Listen to pop music: when you and I were children, there were actually a few French singers — do you remember Françoise Hardy and Johnny Halliday? Where are they now?

PPR: Still going strong!

DH-A: I think he lives in Switzerland, actually, and is against the Lisbon Treaty. But America, at the popular level, is still dominant, and I put that down to history, culture, and above all language, because since the EU was founded, that — what might be called maritime — magnetic pull on the United Kingdom has got stronger, and meanwhile the Continental pull, which obsesses politicians, has actually got weaker.