It is hardly surprising that they are. European, above all the euro, deepens rather than subsides. William Hague and his zealous team can issue 26 pages of Euro-attack on ministerial speeches before those speeches are even delivered, as they did on Monday. They think it is their best election card. The media duly dubbed it a new campaign on Europe, though both stressed nothing had changed.
Ministers repeatedly try to sell a positive message on Europe.
Mr Blair calls them in privately to instruct them to do so. The message gets drowned out by what is often near-hysterical xenophobia. So do genuine questions about the future of the EU which ministers ought to answer. This week should have been a quiet one on the euro-front, at least in public. As usual in the run-up to such a meeting Mr Blair had a video conference with President Jacques Chirac of France, another yesterday with his socialist premier, Lionel Jospin.