On the basis of a supposed "leak" from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) to the Sunday Times, most newspapers today are hyperventilating about the Convention of Human Rights and the behaviour of the court in Strasbourg, announcing that the UK is variously "pushing for" or "demanding" reforms.

Buying almost completely into the FCO spin, the babies of the Fourth Estate breathlessly announce the government will "do such things", all in the name of curbing the powers of the errant court – thus demonstrating that Her Majesty's Government is still in control, and giving those foreign Johnnies what for.

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Seems to me, after a quick persual, that the European Court of Human Rights is a tad overwhelmed with caseloads at the mo. .

The member states must be shunting cases up at them at a fair rate of knots,some of our judges must be relishing getting their "out trays" emptied.

It is not the member states, but individuals who are overloading the court. In essence, it has become the final court of appeal, to which individuals are referring when they can't get an issue resolved in their own national courts. This is something which was not originally intended, and for which the court is not equipped. Therefore, the court recognises it must be trimmed back, and has been working to achieve that since 2009. But now, you get the British government claiming credit for something that was happening anyway.

The Great Deception dropped through my letterbox the other day, giving the postman a hernia and causing some damage to the floor tiles in the porch. I have started reading it. Believe me, readers, this is one tremendous book. It's a big fat history book replete with footnotes, but still a real page-turner. I can't put it down (mind you, if I did I probably wouldn't be able to pick it up again). If you haven't got it, get it. If you haven't read it, read it. If you've read it, remember it, absorb it and pass it on. That Heath...

The Many Not The Few next.