I've made quite a big thing about Chris's European Parliamentary experience both in writing to him when encouraging him to stand and to other people. It seems to me that, now that Blair's pretty lacklustre presidency is over and with the sceptic Brown on the horizon and with Cameron likely to pull the Tories even further away from Europe there is no longer any desire to champion Europe in the higher echelons of the other parties and that pro-Europe voters have nowhere to hang their hats.

Chris is just what Britain needs in a champion for the European cause. As an MEP he's been at the heart of the working of the EU and, perhaps more importantly, in the representative part of the EU where he has scrutinised and held the other arms of the EU to account. For too long the political discourse on Europe in the UK has focussed on the supposed excesses and lack of democracy of the Commission or the inter-state wrangling in the Council. In Chris we have an opportunity to explain and promote how a truly democratic Europe can be made to work for us, its citizens.

We all seem to agree that we want a distinctive agenda marking us out from the other parties. In the next few years, while they do their best to look embarrassedly apologetic about Europe on the one hand or downright anti-Europe on the other with Chris we can be positive about Europe and our place in it. And vastly strengthen our position as the only party for pro-Europeans in the UK.