The UK has kept its distance from the eurozone's crisis. Under Labour Britain refused to back loan guarantees to other countries. Prime minister David Cameron's coalition has ruled out joining the euro and ceding further powers to the EU without a referendum.

So what do people in Brussels make of the hardline stance?

Jacki Davis from the European Policy Centre said: "Always you find with British governments, however strong they are in an anti-European sense before they take office, when they get into office they realise they have to do deals, they have to make it work."

Events surrounding the defeated Labour party have been unfolding rapidly. With Gordon Brown gone, former foreign secretary David Miliband has bid to replace him.

"I'm standing for the leadership because I believe that I can lead Labour to rebuild itself as the great reforming champion of social and economic change in this country," he said.

So far the new Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition's promise to deliver a new way of doing politics in Britain has been well received even by hardened commentators. But the first real tests will not be long in coming.