RSGOLD-RUNESCAPEGOLD

And I wonder about the sagacity of that.Fair enough, though, that's the world we live in It works, at least for the time being, for the Government But journalism has a problem The easy answer is to stop listening to briefings. If a ministerial aide brags about conning the press, why should anyone ring him up ever again? Doesn't the press have some kind of duty to the readers to stand back and say - thanks, but no thanks? That, though, is a counsel of perfection for another and easier world. In this world, a story is a story is a story.So where are we left on the single currency? My strong impression and belief is that Gordon Brown is keener on an earlier decision than Tony Blair The latter is a brilliant tactical politician. Up to a point, he has to say that: had he announced proudly that, yes, he and the PM disagreed about the timing of any attempt to replace sterling with the euro, then he'd have had to resign as Chancellor too But let us, for a while, take him at his word. The question then is, who composed the original fiction - the briefings which are wrong? Was it the journalists? I know them all, those on The Independent and other newspapers, and I don't believe it. Was it the departmental briefers, then, who were responsible for the misinformation? And if so, why?Here we have a small difficulty. Some readers will have seen the recent two-part documentary about Labour's Treasury team, before and after entering office.

It was well-made, hugely entertaining, fly-on-the-wall stuff. I was gobsmacked by some of the material that Gordon Brown's team was prepared to see broadcast - in particular, the open and cheery admission that journalists were misinformed, indeed lied to, about important policy announcements. But it fitted with a mood of triumphal news management that was already present before the election and has become rampant since May. The Labour team is highly professional and has been hugely successful. But what we now have is a swaggering celebration of spin - a contempt for journalism. It is the single most important and difficult decision currently before the Prime Minister and indeed the country generally.Yesterday morning the Chancellor, Gordon Brown, announced on the BBC Today programme that our report about him disagreeing with Tony Blair was ``fiction''.

These stories are consistent and encourage the idea of an early decision to move towards entry. Then they are denied as rubbish by another pretty important part of government, the Prime Minister's Office. Logically, I would have thought, only one of two things can be happening. Either, as we believe, the briefings are honest, and therefore there is a disagreement. Or one set of briefings is dishonest, and the whole ``yes we are, no we aren't'' performance is a deliberate piece of news management - an attempt, as the shadow Chancellor, Peter Lilley, suggested, to confuse and demoralise critics, and soften up opinion before the decision on Emu is announced. So which is it? This is not a minor matter.