• Joint sovereignty among past proposals
• Honour principles but be flexible over ancient conquests
• Falklands, and enclaves in Morocco, also in the frame
Shots of HMS Illustrious, the navy's aircraft carrier (though with no aircraft), steaming out of Portsmouth harbour and looking for all the world as though she was on a mission to come to the aid of the people of Gibraltar, once again beseiged by Spain, are shown repeatedly.
"Maybe it's just a fluke that HMS Illustrious is about to bristle into view on the southern coast of Spain, complete with thousands of Royal Marines and other elite commando units," wrote London's mayor, Boris Johnson in the Daily Telegraph, as he told the people of Spain to keep their "hands off our Rock".
Ministers might have enjoyed, even encouraged, the media to raise the temperature over the latest episode in the 300 year-old dispute — Spain delaying road traffic and threatening to impose a hefty tax on vehicles entering or leaving Gibraltar in an apparent response to the construction of an artificial reef designed to stop the Spanish fishing around the Rock.
Illustrious, as on-the-record statements by the Ministry of Defence repeated, was on its way, with other ships of the Royal Navy, to a long-planned exercise in the eastern Mediterranean.
The UK government said it had asked if Illustrious could drop anchor at the Spanish naval base in Rota. No problem, said the Spanish government.
This did not stop the war of words between the British and Spanish media, encouraged by the exchange of rhetoric between the Spanigh foreign minister, José Manuel García-Margallo, and Gibraltar's chief minister, Fabian Picardo.
Spain will never sit down and talk to Britain and Gibraltar at the same table while Picardo is in power, said García-Margallo.
Picardo accused Spain's foreign minister of "rantings" reminiscent of North Korea and rhetoric reminiscent of General Franco.
Sooner or later, both sides will need to grow up and reach an accommodation so why not start again now and build on past attempts, rather than wait for the next generation to pick up the pieces.
Spain says it is talking to Argentina with the aim of raising the status of Gibraltar at the UN, just as Argentina is stepping up its claims over the Falkland Islands.
The British government says "self-determination matters more than territorial integrity". Spain and Argentina say the opposite. Both principles are upheld in the same UN resolution — the Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples, General Assembly resolution number 1514 (XV) of 14 December 1960.
In strict treaty terms, as I have mentioned before, Britain's claims to Gibraltar are stronger — the Rock was was ceded in perpetuity to the British Crown in 1713 by the Treaty of Utrecht. Yet, just as successive UK governments have been prepared to negotiate about sovereignty of the Falklands, so they have sought a joint sovereignty agreement with Spain cover Gibraltar. The last attempt to do so was in 2002.
Margaret Thatcher's government secretly offered to hand over sovereignty of the Falklands islands two years before the invasion by Argentine forces in 1982.
The cabinet's defence committee approved a plan whereby Britain would hand Argentina titular sovereignty over the islands, which would then be leased back by Britain for 99 years.
The British and Argentinian flags would be flown side by side on public buildings on the islands. British administration would continue with a view to guaranteeing the islanders and their descendants "uninterrupted enjoyment of their way of life".
So the British and Spanish flags could be flown side by side in Gibraltar.
All practical rights — human, civil, political, and cultural, indeed the way of life of Gibraltarians and Falklanders alike — would be protected and entrenched in law.
And as my colleague Simon Hoggart has noted, there is the question of Spain's territories in Morocco — notably Ceuta and Melilla.
The enclaves are claimed by Morocco and, as Spain says, the inhabitants overwhelmingly wish to keep their status, in this case as Spaniards.
They would remain Spanish, but acknowledge they don't inhabit Spain.
