Paul Stephenson: Look over there!

Paul is a Researcher for Open Europe. In the second instalment of a series on how the EU constitution is returning by stealth, he details what powers could be handed over.

Yesterday's Times ran quite a good cartoon featuring Brown and Blair as magicians struggling to pull a rabbit out of the EU hat.

The analogy is bang on. The key to a good magic trick is to distract the attention of the audience. And that is exactly what the government is up to in Brussels.

Government spinners keep briefing hacks that it is fighting with its back to the wall to see off all kinds of plots to give the EU more power. The story for domestic consumption is that although the talks are awfully tough, the Government is successfully handbagging its EU partners into submission in the negotiations.