By Fuk Yew, Our Diplomatic Correspondent

Lord Falconer, ex flatmate of Tony Blair and consequently appointed UK Secretary of State for Constitutional Affairs, today denied that he was a cretin.

Professor of International Law at Edinburgh University, Ken Athing, had suggested that anyone suggesting that a newly independent country had to renegotiate all existing treaties entered into by the former state was "either a cretin, a legal troll, a troublemaking bastard, a lying arsehole or, at least, f**king stupid."

Athing had said, "It's really quite easy. All a newly free country has to do is to write to the Secretary General of the UN stating that they agree to be bound by all the treaties entered into by the predecessor state. The wording is very simple.

"Lots of countries have done it. A wee letter saying Scotland 'as a former constituent part of the UK, has granted its agreement to the ratification of the international treaties in accordance with the then valid constitutional provisions' does the trick. For Christ's sake, how could anyone with a smidgeon of knowledge, or even more than one damaged brain cell, think differently?"

"Even the Hootsmon, whose knowledge of the law approximates to the size of a gnat's bollock, has reduced that figure by the 5,500 that are no longer active. If they had bothered to read the paper by my pal Alan Boyle, they would have realised that they were only talking about treaties which involve membership of international organisations like the EU, so the number is vastly smaller than that."

Falconer strongly denied that he was a "cretin", though accepted that all the other charges were probably true. "In my own defence", he said, "my ignorance of legal issues was pretty well established when I totally screwed up the abolition of the Lord Chancellor post and the Secretaries of State for the non-English bits of the UK. Who would have guessed that there were legal thingies that stopped me from doing that? To quote my pal Wee Wullie Rennie - 'Bit whit can ye dae, eh?'"

Related Articles

Herald : New phase is promised in referendum campaign (Aye, right!)

Wikipedia : Charles Falconer, Baron Falconer of Thoroton

United Nations : Slovakia letter to UN on treaties

Crawford & Boyle : Opinion: Referendum on the Independence of Scotland – International Law Aspects

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