AM I about to lose my job to a German? After all, (a) there is a proposal for a European "Foreign Minister"; (b) some say that a German will get the position.

Two + two in euro-maths always makes five, (or more). So, the Euro Foreign Minister will take over my position, and British foreign policy will be no more.

It won't happen. However long I do this job, there will be a Foreign Secretary after me, and a distinctively British foreign policy will continue.

That I guarantee. But the very currency of my opening question tells its own story of the fevered atmosphere in which the latest proposals from the Convention on the Future of Europe are being considered.

This "Convention" was agreed some eighteen months ago at a European Summit in Laeken just outside Brussels, and was charged with coming up with proposals to make the European Union more effective and accountable. But the Convention itself will decide nothing.

Actual decisions about changes can only be made by the unanimous agreement of national governments, including ours. Even then, the Treaty, likely to be signed well into next year, will have to be approved by Parliament.

So it's going to be wet towels around the head of J Straw for months ahead as the details get negotiated. I had a foretaste on Tuesday when I went off to Chequers, the PM's country house -- to discuss all this.

It's a Tudor country house set in large grounds -- and one of the few places where the PM can get some fresh air. Because there is heavy perimeter security the house itself is fairly informal -- a good place to talk!

What our PM and the other 14 heads of Government all recognised when they set up the Convention was that as the EU expanded -- to 25 member states, and later to 28 to take in Bulgaria, Romania and Turkey -- it would have to change the way it ran itself; otherwise it would grind to a halt.

And, while it was about changing its method of operation, it would be a good idea if its rules were put in a sensible order in a single rule book, rather than being spread in a variety of legal texts, some rather obscure.

Then, there is this proposal for a European Foreign Minister. Here, we feel foreign policy is and must remain a matter of national sovereignty for nation states; and I am not keen on the title, preferring the more accurate "External Affairs Representative". But I have no problem at all with the idea of the EU developing a common agreed foreign policy if it can. Sometimes it can't -- Iraq showed that. But it is better if we can agree; where we do, our collective strength is weightier than the sum of our individual strength.

The Balkans makes the point; so does the Middle East; on both, an agreed EU approach is providing an extra push towards greater peace.

Net conclusion. I'm keeping one of my jobs (as long as the Prime Minister wants me to do it; the other depends on the people of Blackburn).

And, no, Blackburn is not about to be taken over by Brussels either!