6.3.08

A curiousity? A slip? An admission?

A message I sent earlier today to Mr. Miliband; first to his constituency website (dont know and dont really care if thats okay) and then to his address in his capacity as secretary of state for commonwealth and foreign affairs. Personally I will be dubbing him "cleft of the left" from now on but thats here nor there.
- original transcript sourced from EU Referendum 2's indespensible blog.

"From: tomrat
Sent: 06 March 2008 13:20
To: 'msu.correspondence@fco.gov.uk'
Subject: RE: BBC Radio 4 Wednesday


Good Afternoon Mr. Miliband,


Having read the transcripts to your radio 4 debate on the EU Referendum treaty yesterday I was just wondering if you wouldn’t mind elaborating on the following answer James Naughtie’s question:


Question from James Naughtie: David Miliband, why if Angla Merkel for one says that the fundamentals are the same, why do you insist that the constitution has been abandoned.

David Miliband: Well, I oppose a referendum on this treaty for the same reason that William Hague voted against a referendum on the Maastricht Treaty in 1992, which is that neither of these treaties exercise a fundamental shift in the balance of power between the nation state and the European Union…”


In particular I am interested in the phrase “.., which is that neither of these treaties exercise a fundamental shift in the balance of power between the nation state and the European Union…”


Thank you for your time,


Kind regards,"

Now not being the cleverest chap I may be reading more into this than I first thought, but surely if "neither of these treaties exercise a fundamental shift in the balance of power between the nation state and the European Union" then their isn't much point to them in the first instance. However, the other side of the coin is that the fundamental shift in the balance of power has not altered; it has always been within the hands of our foreign government in Brussels, and this interview was an admission as such.

It will be interesting to hear his reply (if any), though silence tends to speak volumes.