Are Blair-Brown winning the spin war over the Euro summit?

If there is one symbol above all that represents “Britishness” (G. Brown please note) it is, surely, the British sausage. For after that wonderful Yes Minister programme all those years ago it’s a good metaphor for Britain’s relations with the EU.

Viewers will no doubt recall the classic episode of the programme when a distracting tactic was drawn up to “save the British sausage” as a mean of boosting the Hacker government’s popularity.

Whenever we have the aftermaths of EU summit I always think back and have a little chuckle over that classic TV programme.

For exactly the same tactic as used by Hacker has been deployed by all Tory and Labour governments since. You define a set issues that you know that you can win in the negotiations and then when you do you parade it as a great victory.

So its very hard following the post summit coverage to work out whether a good deal for Britain has been secured or not. Hopefully for Labour when the details becomes more widely available all the media focus will be on other things.

On the basis of this morning’s coverage you have to conclude that the government had done a brilliant spinning job in setting out why a constitutional referendum, unwisely promised by Tony in April 2004, won’t be necessary.

Mike Smithson