The myth that the EU wants to stamp out the British pint of milk has resurfaced this week, along with a new twist: apparently the eurocrats also want to ban our sliced bread! The story has been generated by the British Retail Consortium and the usual Tory suspects have jumped on the bandwagon. (Examples are here, here and here.)

This story is easily rebutted. Simply put: the European Parliament is about to pass new laws on consumer protection and packaging, but these laws will not endanger the traditional British pint. Just as they didn't endanger it last time this old euromyth came around. ("Another sliver of the British way of life bites the dust", according to the Telegraph in 2001.) In fact, Parliament's report specifically provides protection for traditional pint measures.

Does nobody notice that these cheap inventions, endlessly recycled by the tabloids, never actually come true? Does it not cross the sub-editor's mind, when they write yet another headline like EU BANS BRITISH PINTA (or EU MILKING US FOR WHAT WE'RE WORTH, or UK BOTTLES OUT OF EU DEBATE, or whatever dubious pun they go for), that we've been here before? Has nobody noticed that the doorstep pint still exists, for crying out loud?!

The facts about this myth, like virtually all the others, are easily accessible and in the public domain. So why have so many papers published a completely false report? At the very best, it's shoddy journalism. More likely it reveals the overt europhobe agenda of our written media.

The press are getting more and more shameless in their willingness to endorse fabrications which ridicule Europe - just as they did with the lies about putting the EU flag on car number-plates, the lies about banning walnuts, and the original, classic lies about straight bananas.

And finally - why are these same papers not queueing up today to print corrections?