This evening I attended a farewell dinner for John Monks, the outgoing President of the European Trade Union Confederation. He may be outgoing, but he is certainly not retiring. In the January 2011 Honours List he was appointed as a working member of the House of Lords, and he will now take his considerable expertise, political skills and passionate Europeanism to the UK’s second chamber. My friend, former European Parliament Secretary General Julian Priestley (who did a ten year stint) was a fellow guest at table and I shall shortly post a photograph of the three of us because, nationality and passionate Europeanism aside, the three of us have one particular thing in common; we have all given the annual John Fitzmaurice Memorial Lecture.