So Gordon Brown has skulked in and signed up to the EU Constitution in the shadows, breaking his election manifesto pledge for a referendum, but at the same time managing to upset both europhiles, eurosceptics and other EU leaders.

It seems increasingly characteristic of the Prime Minister's inability to take a decision without putting his foot in it.

Gordon Brown has left Britain with the worst of all worlds. With his thick felt pen he has signed away another tranche of powers to the EU, by snubbing his hosts and our other European partners, his influence in Brussels has taken a further knock.

What the Prime Minister now will face is the need to defend day in day out his refusal to let the British people have their say, despite Labour's manifesto pledge to do so.

At the last General Election all three parties pledged a referendum on the EU Constitution. Gordon Brown has broken this pledge. A first test for the new LibDem Leader, to be announced next week, will be whether he honours or breaks the LibDem pledge for a referendum. Only David Cameron stands by his party's promise of a vote by all the people on the treaty, that is really a constitution in all but name.

This Constitution is due to be debated at length in Parliament over the winter, so this difficulty for Gordon Brown is not going to die down quietly. And nor should it given the wrong direction in which it is headed.