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Revisiting St Nick

• Mark Mardell
• 11 Dec 07, 08:05 PM

I realise I haven’t replied to any comments for a while.

Be assured I do read them all. There is some debate around the date on which Sinterklaas arrives.

My Belgian friends tell me it is the 6th, which is Saint Nicholas' feast day. But many Dutch correspondents say he comes on the 5th.

Several of you point out the picture is of Santa Claus, not Sinterklaas. You are right, he happened to be on display at the ice rink in Amsterdam where my children were skating, so I thought I would snap him to go along with the Black Peters in the toy shop window.

I can’t remember where I first saw his horse being equated with Odin’s steed Sleipnir but .

I wish you all good luck in searching for the β€œreal story” but I think by the nature of myth one can expect a degree of inexactitude and icon-merging.

I rather agree with those who question whether it is racist to associate evil with darkness: I would be really surprised if cultures in Africa didn’t do so as well.

My point wasn’t urging some simplistic purging of language and imagery, but to highlight how the intertwining of several different traditions can create a layered meaning.

Political correctness? Well, it is a term I would love to explore one day, but it is often used by both sides as a fireblanket on debate, which I loathe.

There are plenty of comments of the β€œjust get over it” type, but there are also those from people who do feel hurt and offended.

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Making hay with the PM's diary clash

• Mark Mardell
• 11 Dec 07, 12:01 AM

MPs will today debate the treaty of Lisbon which Gordon Brown may, although then again, . Officials still say with a straight face that they are trying to resolve a diary clash.

is indeed an important duty for the PM but the MPs who make it up are not completely inflexible.

Unless the usually efficient diary secretaries in have suddenly been overcome with incompetence, this is hard to swallow.

But it's equally difficult to believe that Mr Brown would have thought he would have gained any brownie points from opponents of the treaty by signing up to it, but not signing it in person.

He will, however, annoy other European leaders and the Commission, who may be reminded that, and both came to Brussels within days of their election, Mr Brown has yet to make the trip as Prime Minister.

about this clumsiness and the treaty itself.

I was struck, listening back to an interview with the shadow foreign secretary, William Hague, how often he used the conditional tense: he is not accepting that the treaty, and the changes it proposes, are a done deal.

Indeed, he tells me that, if there is not a referendum, he will regard the treaty as illegitimate, although he doesn't want to spell out the practical implications of that for a Conservative government.

In the interview I focused on the implications of the treaty for EU foreign policy.

Mr Hague told me: "I am very worried about what is happening in foreign affairs. The creation of a European foreign minister is a major development. And is intended to be.

"In the new treaty he is called High Representative: that is simply a change of terminology (from the European Constitution). There are no other changes to the intended role of the foreign minister.

"So you do get here the structure of a "European foreign ministry and the drafters of this treaty intend that will create more and more power at the European level over time."

The treaty does state in black and white that Britain will not lose any control over its own policy but Mr Hague is not impressed.

"There is meant to be legal protection in the treaty for Britain's independent foreign policy, but according to legal experts it is only a declaration, not legally binding protocol.

"This is something we should be very worried about that will change the dynamics of determining foreign policy over time.

"I don't think we would be told what to do with our troops in Afghanistan, but the atmosphere that would be created and the institutions that would be created would increasingly push us and other countries towards thinking that we have to have agreement on foreign policy across the European Union as a whole."

Mr Hague also raises a point that most of the others I have talked to about this have also spotted: .

This person is meant to arrange the meetings of the leaders of the nation state and it could be an intensely bureaucratic role, chasing up agreements and patching up alliances in back rooms.

But some want the person who gets the job to be "Mr or Mrs Europe".

The approving member of the cabinet of one EU country told me with a grin: "At last Europe will have a king!"

Mr Hague does not approve: "The President also seems to have a role in foreign policy, in the external representation of the European Union. It's not quite clear how that fits with the High Representative, so some institutional tension is being created for the future.

"But it also means that as well as a European foreign minister going around the world saying "I am the foreign minister of Europe" you have a president going around saying "I am the president of Europe" and that again is intended to accrue more power to the centre, over time, at the expense of the national states."

The shadow foreign secretary is of a book on , and points out it wasn't always clear that whoever held the title of would be Britain's leader.

He thinks the President's job could grow in the same way (some have suggested it could be combined with the role of ).

Mr Hague seems to be rather looking forward to the Lisbon treaty's passage through the Commons next year.

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