I don’t normally get caught up in the spasms of patriotic fever that grip the nation whenever England or a GB team reach a major sporting final — which thankfully is quite rare.

However, Saturday’s Rugby World Cup final in Paris between what was recently a no-hopers’ England team, and the seemingly unbeatable South Africa, is catching everyone’s attention, not least in that sleepy hollow of scholarly values, the Syntagma office.

One of the reasons is that in the next few days the Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, is about to enact one of the great betrayals in history — signing the shamefully dishonest and authoritarian European Constitution while reneging on his promise of a referendum.

This act by Brown has been described by the all-party House of Commons Scrutiny Committee as “akin to Neville Chamberlain’s appeasement of Hitler in 1938″.

The rugby final provides a distraction for the dire political events happening not so many miles away in Lisbon. So, while Syntagma wishes “the lads” well in Paris, we simultaneously call down a multitude of plagues on the houses of all those involved in the Great Brussels Stitch-Up.

Oh, and I should mention that Englishman Lewis Hamilton could become Formula One World Champion in Brazil on Sunday.

We wish our great sportsmen the best of British over the weekend, while to our unsporting politicians, deep, unremitting gloom.