It IS the constitution

I don't really know how much clearer it can be. The Conference of Presidents, which is a meeting in the European Parliament comprising of the Presidents of the political groups, had this on their meeting summary:

Conference of Presidents Thursday 30 August 2007

Organisational arrangements for the 'Citizens' Forum'/Agora meetings in 2007

The Conference agreed to postpone the holding of the first Citizens' Forum on the

Constitutional Treaty issues from 18-19 October to 8-9 November 2007.

It couldn't be plainer, could it. It is being referred to by MEPs as the 'Constitutional Treaty'. It's not a 'reform treaty' and Brown and Miliband are wrong when they say that they are fundamentally different treaties. And they know they are wrong, because even though they come out with claims about 'red lines' even European Commissioners are saying that they are lines in the sand, and not concrete.

Other political leaders and politicians across the EU have had the decency to admit what the treaty is, if not the honour to allow the people the chance to have a say in a referendum. Well, they might come back with the wrong answer you see, like last time. Terribly inconvenient, that was, and then the EU had to instead put everything through piecemeal and make a song and dance and pretend to be listening to the people. What a bore, eh?

However, we still have on the record that amongst the detritus which emerges from the mouths of elected officials, there is:
German Chancellor Angela Merkel
"The fundamentals of the Constitution have been maintained in large part. We have renounced everything that makes people think of a state, like the flag and the national anthem." El Pais (25 June)
German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier
The mandate approved by the EU will "preserve the substance of the constitutional treaty". Agence Europe (25 June)
Spanish Prime Minister Jose Zapatero
"A great part of the content of the European Constitution is captured in the new treaties", Zapatero said. "Everyone has conceded a little so that we all gain a lot", added Zapatero. El Pais (25 June)
Irish Taoiseach Bertie Ahern
"Given the fact that there was strong legal advice that the draft constitution in 2004 would require a referendum in Ireland, and given the fact that these changes haven't made any dramatic change to the substance of what was agreed back in 2004, I think it is likely that a referendum will be held... thankfully they haven't changed the substance - 90 per cent of it is still there."
On the change of name for the EU Foreign Minister he said:
"It's the original job as proposed but they just put on this long title - High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy and also vice President of the Commission. It's the same job [.] it's still going to be the same position." Irish Independent (24 June)
Danish PM Anders Fogh Rasmussen
"The good thing is...that all the symbolic elements are gone, and that which really matters - the core - is left." Jyllands-Posten (25 June)
Finland's Europe Minister Astrid Thors
"There's nothing from the original institutional package that has been changed" TV-Nytt, (23 June)
Finland's State Secretary for EU Affairs Jari Luoto
There are few differences between it and "the constitutional treaty which has already been ratified by Finland's Parliament". YLE News
Elmar Brok MEP
"Despite all the compromises, the substance of the draft EU Constitution has been safeguarded." Euractiv (25 June)
Jo Leinen MEP
"We kept the substance of the Constitution"
Gerard Onesta MEP
"It's incredible to see what we slipped under the carpet"
Johannes Voggenhuber MEP
"All the Constitution is there! Nothing is missing!"

When is that bastard of a Prime Minister going to stop lying to us and grant us a referendum? No one is saying that he can't go round campaigning for a 'yes' vote, the misguided idiot, but to lie so openly and often and to break a major manifesto pledge is not even worthy of a Labour politician, so low it goes. The Tories have done it before and the Lib Dems are always trying to deceive people, since if most people knew what they really stood for I suspect they would rather cut off their hand than put a cross next to their candidate.

So maybe it is exactly what we should expect from all politicians, because all the parties are perfectly happy to deceive us, the public, the people who pay their wages, to suit their own personal ends.

What do we know, eh? And what do we matter. They just tell us lies and it's our own fault for letting them get away with it. If their lies and promises they can't keep weren't reported as if they were genuine pledges it would be a good start. But if when we caught them out, we stopped voting for the bastards, I think that would be an altogether better way of sending a message along the lines of:
Stop taking the piss out of us, you deluded freaks!

Opinions to the usual address, on a shoe box.

This month's bottle of Krug to anyone who can tell me what the Lib Dems are up to these days.