Have just seen an utterly ridiculous press release from the Conservative leader Tim Kirkhope MEP, accusing Labour MEPs of being “in chaos” and contradicting the government’s position on the Constitutional Treaty in today’s vote in the European Parliament.

The Tories desperately cobbled together a press release with some outrageously selective editing of the report; once the report is read in full it is quite clear the press release is complete tosh.

The Conservative press release reads: “17 Labour MEPs voted in favour of the Brok report which committed the European Parliament to ‘reaffirm its commitment to achieving a settlement of the ongoing constitutional process of the European Union which is based on the content of the Constitutional Treaty, possibly under a different presentation’"

A quick glance at the actual report shows that the paragraph above (paragraph six) is cut off mid-sentence. It actually finishes “but taking account of the difficulties that have arisen in some Member States" – the key point which they deliberately cut out.

The Tories also conveniently ignored any mention of the following paragraph (paragraph seven unsurprisingly), which is also the exact position of the Labour government, namely to have an inter-governmental conference this autumn to negotiate a new treaty.

It will be interesting to see if this weak concoction actually makes the papers. Hopefully not, but if it does it will not have been the first time an absurd Tory press release from Europe has made column inches in some of the right-wing rags.