Many suspect that the Department for Constitutional Affairs is just a hop, skip and jump away from being a fully fledged Ministry of Justice, however much it is denied.

But evidence for this now comes from no less a source than the European Commission.

At last week's commission conference on the regulation of professional services in Brussels, organisers labelled delegates from the department as being from the UK Ministry of Justice.

When Obiter enquired as to whether they knew something the rest of us did not, one member of the delegation told us in no uncertain terms that it was just shorthand and that we shouldn't read anything into it.

Only time will tell.