So now we have an answer to yesterday's question. Why has Tony Blair now decided to have a referendum on the EU constitution when there is overwhelming public opposition to the constitution? Because he intends to ignore the result! When he said 'the people will have their say', he omitted to add 'and a fat lot of good that will do them because I will take no notice'. In Prime Minister's questions, he hinted that if the people said no in the referendum -- why, he'd just hold it again until they said yes! And if you thought you were dreaming when you heard this, listen again to the Foreign Secretary Jack Straw on the Today programme this morning (8.10am) and you will hear someone who calls himself a democrat saying in all seriousness that if a 'no' vote showed the public simply didn't like aspects of the constitution rather than the principle of the thing, the vote would be run again. But it's the components of the constitution -- all the provisions that remove the power of national self-government, salami slice by salami slice -- that are the cause of the objection. And anyway, since when did giovernments take it upon themselves to deconstruct what was in people's minds when they voted? What next -- a general election defeat that will be rejected because Tony Blair decides the public simply didn't like one particular policy which he will then undertake to change?

This is no longer a serious government. It is simply disintegrating under pressure.