Scant compensation

Further to Friday's piece on the new EU Commission posts (described by Nicolas Sarkozy as a "victory" for France, who said the British were the 'big losers') it emerges that Jonathan Faull has been appointed as Michel Barnier's right-hand man as Director General of the Internal Market portfolio.

According to PA, Faull will ensure that "the interests of the City of London are understood at the highest levels of the Brussels bureaucracy."

We're not so sure. The man is a career eurocrat – he’s been working in the Commission bureaucracy since 1978, including a stint running the EU’s propaganda department, “DG Press and Communication”, between 1999 and 2003. Judging by his CV Faull has never worked in the City or similar in his life. How can he possibly have the interests of the City of London at heart, when his whole career has been about European integration?

This is scant compensation for the loss of the influential trade portfolio and the appointment of the protectionist French Europhile Michel Barnier to regulate Europe's financial markets.