PPR: Yes, that is what we want. The nation states led to endless wars, competition and slaughter. The nation state was a terrible idea, whereas Charles V's concept of Christendom, of a European Holy Roman Empire, was a wonderful idea. And the EU is to some extent a re-embodiment of Charles V's concept of how Europe should be governed. For example, I don't think Spain and Austria have ever fought a war. Have they, the two Habsburg powers? I mean, if the Habsburgs had ruled the whole of Europe, we wouldn't have had those religious wars. Protestantism would have been nipped in the bud by the Inquisition.

DJ: Jay, we might also not have had parliamentary democracy though.

PPR: The insistence that our system of adversarial parliamentary democracy is the best system of government, not just for us but for everyone else, is mistaken. It simply does not work in underdeveloped nations, such as Kenya or, I fear, Afghanistan. We bring democracy to Iraq at great loss, whereupon the Iraqis draw up a constitution that denies equal rights to women.

DJ: But we also to some extent exported it to Europe. Since the Second World War, Europe has been, on the whole, a group of democracies. And the British, the Americans and others did a lot to make that happen. But don't you think that the way that the EU is run is not very democratic? The Germans  never had a vote on adopting the euro. David, does the euro story in Britain tell a different story?

DH-A: Most political parties, most sections of the media, the TUC, the CBI, all felt it was simply a matter of time [to adopt the euro]. But a few people — and I am glad I was one of them — never accepted that. Now who wants to join the euro? It's even been dropped formally by the Liberal Democrats. It is simply not on the agenda, because it is seen that there are advantages in having your own monetary policy, in fighting recessions and organising national economies. So I think that the EU is the same — we are all prone to fashion, what looks inevitable at one time, like the Soviet Union used to be, a few years later looks absurd. And I think that many aspects of the EU that we now regard as completely inevitable, in time will be regarded as historical curiosities. 

PPR: Well, I wonder. The euro — what was it when it was launched against the pound?

DH-A: The exchange rate? It was fixed by bureaucrats, and of course the market takes a different view. This is the world in which I believe. It is people that set the value of currencies, not governments. 

PPR: The pound has sunk and there is a danger now that it will be almost worthless.