Charles Clarke has returned to the news headlines since talking publicly about his dismissal from the cabinet, but on Tuesday night he spoke at a Socialist Group conference in Brussels.

The conference focused on fighting terrorism and how to ensure security without infringing on citizens rights – a common challenge for governments across Europe. In his excellent speech, Charles offered an insight into his immense knowledge on the subject.

He also sensitively covered the importance of better relationships with Muslim communities – a challenge that different European countries have addressed in quite different ways, but where comparing best practice shows that Britain has done far better than most.

On terrorism, there are some common measures that EU countries have agreed to take jointly, such as the European Arrest Warrant that enabled Britain to obtain rapid extradition of the suspected London bomber who escaped to Italy.

Shame that even such patently useful forms of co-operation are lambasted by Eurosceptics as being “too federalist” or an “attempt to get the constitution in by the back door”.