Pelagius wins Nobel Prize!

That's right. So did you, if you're one of the 350 million nationals of the 27 states that make up the European Union.

Now I'm generally a fan of Alfred Nobel's great institution. His intention was to divert the attention of the world away from the grim reality of how he and his family were able to become fabulously wealthy, and in that he was largely successful. People today think of the prize first, and many I suspect know little of the "dark side" of the Nobel legacy. As a final gesture of caution, Nobel decreed that the Peace Prize should be decided and awarded in a country other than the Sweden where his massive fortune had been amassed.

The Peace Prize has been accused of political bias over the years, and not without reason. In 2009 the award went to Barack Obama who, only months into his presidency, had not really had time to contribute anything to world peace. And in 1973 they awarded the prize to Henry Kissinger, a supreme irony considering that on his own admission, he always favoured a military option when he thought it would work quickly, and only took on the role of being America's mouthpiece at the Paris Peace Talks when he knew America was losing the war in Vietnam

This latest award is apparently in tribute to the fact that Europe has avoided war (if you leave out Yugoslavia) for a longer period than it has seen since the Norman conquests, and that the formation of the EU was partly responsible. There is something in this claim, but as far as the UK is concerned, plenty of people would dearly like the whole thing to be torn down. In fact the EU and our membership of it is one of those rare cases where people from the far right and the far left come together as one, though for very different reasons. The right sees it as a demon intent on sucking the life-blood of individual freedom out of us, whereas the left sees it as a despicable capitalist's club, enabling the supersate to dominate the lives of its subjects.

But when you visit Europe, somehow the objections seem to melt away. You see the way countries co-operate with one another as a matter of common sense and mutual self interest. And then you wonder: what the hell is wrong with us that we don't want to be part of this, and want to make it work?