The desperate EU spin continues. The Eurocrats are now bashing the tops like billy-o, and this latest trumpeting of an AAA rating for the €750bn international rescue package borders on the manic.

Fine, so Moody’s and Fitch gave it the top rating. Can you imagine what would’ve happened if they hadn’t? Take this as a parallel:

“Ah yes, well there is good news and bad news. The good news is that we’re going to give €750bn to lots of people who are underwater already. The bad news is that a Mr Deripaski is the lender.”

Now lets get past the headline bollocks and read the small print. The triple A is a provisional rating. And as the FT blithely reported this morning, ‘…(Moodys and Fitch) warned that the ratings would be at risk if there was a potential deterioration in the creditworthiness of the participating eurozone member states’. Note: not actual deterioration, but merely potential for one. Are they serious?

Now, remember the key thing on this: this is a loan being rated here, not a recipient. What the hell difference is the rating of the loan going to make to a credit manager or currency dealer who thinks this is good money after bad? I’m sure Obama’s Housing Relief Fund was AAAA****, but it didn’t stop it disappearing down the foreclosure toilet.

What we’ve got here is this: a Top-notch rated health policy being offered, conditional on not getting ill, to a terminal cancer patient.

It is the stuff of Swiftian satire.