Scotland's injury worries continued ahead of tomorrow's World Cup qualifier in Belarus when two more players were added to the list of absentees. Midfielder Paul Hartley is suspended for the game in Minsk but Gary Caldwell, of Hibernian, is back in contention after he served a one-match ban on Saturday.A number of other players picked up knocks in the Moldova match, which was won by goals from Christian Dailly and James McFadden, but all were able to travel as the party flew from Glasgow Airport yesterday.McFadden insisted the depleted squad would still be strong enough to cope without McNamara and McCann He said: "It's a massive loss to the team They are two great players. There is a fair amount of common ground.A fortnight ago I revealed that Mr Blair had given up on his historic objective of "ending Britain's ambiguity with Europe". He believes the Eurosceptic media in Britain makes this impossible.
At least Mr Blair has the comfort of discovering that France too has an ambiguous relationship with Europe So does Holland. All the EU countries have an ambiguous relationship with Europe; it is just that Britain's is the most ambiguous of all. The ambiguity is inherent, as countries seek to co-operate for reasons of national self-interest.The real challenges for the EU go beyond a contrived row between Britain and France. They relate to fears that the institutions are too distant and unaccountable. Such fears cannot be resolved in the six months of a British presidency or the "two to three years" Peter Mandelson suggested that Mr Blair requires to come to Europe's rescue.As far as the British government is concerned, there is only one cause for unequivocal optimism.
Muddling along is an incomparably preferable option to the clash of cymbals and the flash of lightning that would have followed a catastrophic referendum defeat. The pledge to hold a referendum served its purpose when Europe was killed off as an issue at the last election.s.richards independent.co.uk More from Steve Richards. Collioure, where my wife and I were last week, is just short of the Spanish border on the Med. Over the years we have worked out that there are two main ways of getting there from England.
