Slugger has highlights from Iain Dale's picking up on the Irish Daily Mail getting hold of a copy of an email. The email was sent from a UK diplomat in Dublin following a briefing from the Irish government. It lists the various underhand methods the government planned to use to get the answer they wanted from the referendum and let me tell you it's a strategy Robert Mugabe would be proud of.

You kind of expect a government to set the date they feel would be most suitable, but they've also been found to have been deliberately and consciously misleading the public and their opponents into believing it was a date much later than the date they had planned.

They're practically rejoicing about the fact that the document is "largely incomprehensible to the lay reader", which is no small help to a government whose inherently dishonest aim "is to focus the campaign on overall benefits of the EU rather than the treaty itself". Could that be because there are no tangible benefits in the constitution treaty itself? As the 'No camp' has pointed out, the Republic's place in the EU is secure and a no vote will not change that. What it will do is let the people have a say in what shape the EU takes, rather than having it decided in an undemocratic and unaccountable manner by a remote and powerful elite behind closed doors in Brussels.

The EU are obviously worried by this whole pesky exercise. The EC has promised to 'tone down or delay' any announcements from Brussels 'that might be unhelpful'. A lie of omission is still a lie, but what do you expect from an entity that, when they realised people didn't want their superstate, scribbled out the word "constitution" and replaced it with the much more vague and fluffy "treaty". Let's not forget that the punishment of the French and Dutch voters for defying their governments and exercising their democratic rights on the first vote was to be denied a second.

As an aside, all this makes me wonder what right the EU has to demand potential new members meet certain standards of democracy when the EU itself is one of the most undemocratic (in attitude and procedure), scummy and deceitful governmental institutions in existence anywhere in the so-called civilised world.

Follow up:

When it became clear that the Republic of Ireland was the only country in Europe going to have a referendum on the EU constitution (because according to the Republic's constitution, they have to) nationalists understandably pointed out what a wonderful thing the Republic's constitution was. On the face of it, curtailing the power of governments is a good argument for a written constitution.

It's probably more an illustration of the rank hypocrisy of the Republic's politicians (or politicians generally) than an indictment of the political system itself that the government seem determined to manipulate rather than trust the people, but it does raise serious questions over how much protection a codified constitution offers.

The hypocrisy really pisses me off. The talking up democracy and what a wonderful progressive country they lead while at the same time doing everything they can to subvert the ideals that they purport to defend. I seriously want to vomit at the level of contempt shown by both British and Irish politicians for the people who pay their wages.

Please let me be clear. I'm not gloating about the inadequacies of the Southern system. Far from it. In fact I hope the people of the Republic deliver the government a bloody nose on this. At least they got a say. What did we get? Even the Liberal Democrats running scared of letting the people have a say. Perhaps they need reminding of where the word democracy comes from. Their contempt for the democratic process set out by their own constitution is reason enough to vote against the government and show them who's boss (and, conveniently, save us all from this mess of an EU superstate in the mean time).

Whether you believe in co-operation but not integration, that good fences make good neighbours or just believe in democracy and that a government should not wilfully lie to its own people: it's right to say 'Non!'