It is with disgust, that I learnt today the new of an agreement concerning a new European Constitution. While the name ‘constitution’ has been dropped from the document’s name, it is a constitution in all but the name.

The changes from the previous document, rejected by both French and Dutch voters back in 2005, are mostly cosmetic, concerning a European foreign minister and symbols. Though Tony Blair pretended to have obtained a derogation for us, the only derogation permitted will concern the Charter of Fundamental Rights, as far as foreign policy is concerned, the 26 others states did not signed a binding agreement, allowing us to opt out of the common foreign policy. The result of what happened in Brussels is thus, a clear defeat for the United Kingdom and a stunning victory for the Franco-German alliance of Nicolas Sarkozy and Angela Merkel.

Putting up a strong and determined opposition to any treat was well possible, Lech and Jaroslavl Kaczynski both, respectively President and Prime Minister of Poland did not hesitated to say some truths concerning Germany’s past, on the issue of qualified majority voting. France also managed to repel a clause concerning ‘free and undistorted competition’, there are no doubts that the whole of the French left and a part of the French right, must be celebrating this ‘victory against ultraliberalism’. This all shows that putting up a strong opposition against this treaty was possible, Blair choose not to oppose the treaty, perhaps in order to foster a semblance of ‘European legacy’.

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Our friends, Arleen Ouzounian of Kings College London Conservative Future and Richard Jackson of the University College London Conservative Future have tagged us with the ‘It’s Got To Be Brown’ meme.

I’ve had a very quick go at filling out the questions, though unsurprisingly, I am not expecting Gordon Brown to undertake any of the latter six points any time in the near future - and if he did, I would probably go into shock.

2 things Gordon Brown should be proud of:

• Not losing his hair.
• There really isn’t anything else is there..?

2 things he should apologise for:

• Raiding the pensions pot and leaving many OAPs in effective poverty.
• The massive and unsubstantiated increases in taxation, crime and immigration.

2 things that he should do immediately when he becomes PM:

• Request that Her Majesty dissolve Parliament and initiate a general election.
• Resign.

2 things he should do while he is PM:

• Take Britain out of the European Union immediately.
• Recall all British troops from Iraq and Afghanistan.

Only one week until Gordon Brown becomes our next Prime Minister. I can’t wait… not.

Within days of the current Conservative-led group taking control of Bath and North-East Somerset council, the Student Liaison Committee was unceremoniously scrapped without any supposed consultation.

The local Bath Lib Dems also immediately began complaining that because the ruling Conservative group reduced the number of executive members from eleven to five and renamed it the Cabinet, this was a massive recentralisation of power away from local people – which of course is utter rubbish.

I think firstly, if we take the point about centralisation. Looking just over the border, in Somerset, the County Council run by (yes, you guessed it) the Liberal Democrats is trying to force a massively centralised Unitary authority upon all, which involves abolishing all the District councils and creating one massive super-council for the whole area. The Labour Government is in full support and only a high turnout in a referendum on the matter may dissuade them.

Elsewhere, the real centralisation of power is that in both Westminster and Brussels – the latter of which the Liberal Democrats and Labour staunchly support with unflinching resolve. Anyone see the hypocrisy of claiming you are against what your own side has been doing on a far, far greater scale for years? But then that is the deceitful, two-faced and duplicitous nature of the Liberal Democrats for you. Their sort will do and say absolutely anything to obtain office, even if it means completely contradicting what they are saying elsewhere or have said previously.

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Tonight, Channel Four will be broadcasting a programme called ‘Diana: Witnesses In The Tunnel’. The two Princes, William and Harry have requested that certain sections of the film featuring the last moments of their dying mother, Diana, not be broadcast.

However, Channel Four have claimed that they will not self-censor the independent production and that, as one Channel Four spokesman claimed, showing the footage is in the ‘very much in the public interest’.

Just who exactly do Channel Four think they are when they claim that showing such pictures would be in the public’s interest? I very much suspect that if everyone in this country were asked whether the or not such footage should be shown, most would say it should not. Would you like to see the last moments of your dying mother broadcast to millions of sitting rooms across the country?

Once again, Channel Four are showing a film to cause a stir and controversy. Many people will undoubtedly watch the film because of this – and to that end, the company has achieved its aim. However, is this really the kind of behaviour a publicly funded organisation should be engaging in? I would say not. I am sure I’m not alone.

Perhaps, as unkind as it is to point this out, it is worth noting that the McCann’s have effectively been on an extended holiday without work (no doubt on full pay,) for the past few weeks since their daughter Madeline mysteriously disappeared from their holiday hotel room.

Today, a German programme, on which the McCann’s were appealing for help, accused the parents of being part of the plot – a claim which was immediately and profusely denied.

It’s sad to say that this whole kidnapping affair has been completely over the top and grossly out of proportion. The media at large hasn’t had a child or human tragedy story for a while, much in the style of the Soham murders of Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman whose lives were so callously and brutally snuffed out by the monstrous psychopath Ian Huntley. Presented with another chance to raise newspaper sales and increase ratings, the news corporations have engaged in a widespread outpouring of collective grief, with almost non-stop coverage of the latest events.

At the same time, the McCann family seem to have willingly obliged the media’s lust for keeping the bandwagon story rolling by jetting all over the world to appeal for the support and money to keep up the search for their missing daughter, including an audience with his holiness the Pope at the Vatican and numerous appearances on television stations in different European countries.

The loss of a greatly loved child for anyone is a tragic event almost unimaginable, and the grief and anguish the McCann’s must be living with every day unbearable. This makes the, at times, faux anger and sympathy expressed by the newspapers and televised media in this country surrounding this case quite contemptible.

Sad thought this whole sorry saga may be, many hundreds of children go missing in this country every year without so much as a squeak from the media. Unlike Madeline, little effort will be placed into searching for them, and most will never be seen again. That is the real and ongoing tragedy.

In today’s Daily Telegraph, there was a very interesting article concerning the carbon footprint of different types of foodstuffs, either locally produced or produced overseas.

‘Buy locally produced food’ is a motto commonly used by groups such as Greenpeace, the LibDems or whoever you want. Yet according to this article, the carbon footprint of a tonne of lamb produced in the UK is equal to 2,849 kg against 688 kg for one produced in New Zealand. The comparison is also valid, for products like apples 271 kg for British ones versus 185 kg for New Zealanders ones, lettuce with 3,720 kg versus 3,560 kg for Spanish grown lettuce.

The causes for this are numerous to say the least but I can certainly quote a few, in an area where soils are of a better quality, the use of fertilizers and thence of CO2 will be reduced. More extensive rearing of lambs in the wide open spaces of New Zealand, allows better yields, through better feed and healthier animals. What is striking however is the fact that in this case, what is ‘green’ is meeting what is cheap.

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The announcement of a government consultation about nuclear power made the headlines of today’s newspapers. Among fears concerning gas supplies from Russia, nuclear power seems to be back on the agenda.

Yet despite nice words Tony Blair, Gordon Brown and Alastair Darling, nothing is set into stone. Planning applications are yet to be granted; protesters are yet to be convinced that their opposition to nuclear power is anything but environmentally friendly, and finally no choices have been made over which type of reactor should be used.

Since decommissioning of the few nuclear power stations we have, has already started, one can perfectly say that the Energy White Paper, is at least five years if not ten years late. The ’dash for gas’ which happened in the nineties, was understandable on a financial point of view, moreover since North Sea supplies were still plentiful, there was a strategic case as well, albeit a very weak one. The case for new nuclear power station was understood during the eighties; despite this nothing happened for much of that decade, and from 1997 Tony Blair’s successive government did absolutely nothing, even if one can argue that Energy is part of the ‘public services’ whom they cherish.

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For Britain (and in contrast to the Orange slogan,) the Future’s Bleak, the Future’s Brown. Blair left this country a legacy alright, but it was certainly not a pleasant or favourable one.

While Gordon Brown will want to give the appearance he has made a clean break with the past and Tony Blair, I fear much of what his government will pursue will be along much the same lines. This has most prominently manifested itself in Mr Brown’s pledge to introduce a package of constitutional change. I’m not sure I like the sound of that, especially if it’s anything even vaguely similar to the previous attempts at meddling Labour have partaken in – which I suspect it is.

Labour’s highly contentious devolution of Scotland and Wales began the now irreversible break up of the Union, which Gordon Brown now rather curiously (and hypocritically) claims to somehow be in favour of protecting. The House of Lords and hereditary peers worked well, and yet Labour entered government and engaged in constitutional vandalism without any clear idea of an end outcome – effectively change for change’s sake. Labour are now going to use their own potentially illegal dealings as an excuse for further reform, and as a measure to head off the Loans-for-Peerages scandal which engulfed Blair’s premiership.

Worse still, perhaps, was that within days of entering office, Labour enacted a law allowing unelected special advisors to give direct orders to civil servants. This lead to a fundamental change in the very nature of the relationship between state and government.

The Chancellor tells us that no challengers were able to run for the leadership because Labour are wholly united in their determination not to return to the past. Does anyone really believe that? In reality, Labour MPs were fearful of a leadership contest that would highlight Labour’s divisions in the eyes of the electorate, and the differences between what they publicly said and privately believed.

I believe that Gordon Brown will be ruthless in any changes he will want to make to this country. Some believe the new Prime Minister will be a relatively easy push-over. I am not so sure.

There has been some recent discussion on David Cameron’s policy to rescind Conservative party support for further Grammar schools. Mr Cameron says the Conservatives will ‘never be taken seriously by parents’ so long as the party backs selection.

There have been a number of justifiably angry squawks from the Daily Telegraph and Daily Mail, and an equally numerous number of whinges from Mr Cameron and his supporters who believe that majority of Conservatives should just back down on this issue.

Team Cameron think that because they, along with some unaccountable and nefarious policy group, in their infinite wisdom dreamt up the new policy, they are automatically right and we should not dare to question their judgement.

The Conservative party, which is supposed to be meritocratic, but whose Shadow Cabinet and associated periphery is curiously stuffed full of old Etonians, are effectively denying the academically bright to fulfil their potential and the less able a helping hand. Having said that, Mrs Thatcher, a Grammar school striver of the past, was, along with her previous Conservative governments, one of the main instigators in the decline of the two-tier system – so in part, David Cameron’s policy is merely a continuation of a gradual trend.

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At long last, the light is visible at the end of the tunnel. The shadow of Blair over Britain and the Labour party slowly recedes after what was yet another speech of arguably epic proportions at the end book chapter of a mighty frontline political career – that was, in the end, far overshadowed by spin, incompetence and political decadence.

Today, the curtain falls on a political career that began so full of hope and promise, but ended in failure and despair. The master at work, for perhaps the last time, delivered as memorable a speech as anything made in the prime of his career. He bid farewell to an audience in his constituency of Sedgefield that thunderously applauded as he finally bowed out – but how many of the faces in that crowd wished for him to be gone ‘sooner rather than later?’ The man that brought his party two landslide electoral victories and a third decisive victory only two and a half years ago is soon to be struck off and forced out of office into exile.

In the Conservative party; we might despise Mr Blair and what he has done to our country in ten years of misrule – but we perhaps, and it is hard for many of us to admit, still have some small and barely registerable amount of respect for the abilities of a man who has thwarted us for so long. Clearly there is little love for Anthony Blair left in the Labour party. On June the 27th, he is gone – and all eyes shall turn to the man looming in the shadows, Gordon Brown.