"It's a girl." Tony Blair's official spokesman, Alistair Campbell, was enjoying the moment. This was, after all, a trial run for one version of the good news announcement he will hopefully make next May for his boss and Cherie Blair.
The Downing Street press officer had just taken media questions on all matters European. However, Campbell reverted to the baby subject when asked about the EU's commitment to appointing women to influential international jobs.
The name of the former Irish president, Mrs Mary Robinson, was initially given as one example of a woman in a high-profile United Nations position.
But then the Downing Street press officer playfully threw in his quip about "organising" the gender of the fourth Blair offspring. And with that, any talk that Tony and his predominantly male EU colleagues were downgrading women was dismissed out of hand. Just the type of press relations Charlie McCreevy had been crying out for since Budget day.
For the beleagured Minister for Finance there was little respite, even all those miles away in the snowy Finnish capital from the embarrassment of his Budget climbdown as he went into to a lengthy meeting with his EU counterparts dominated by the taxation of non-resident savings.
The 15 EU finance ministers talked into the early hours of yesterday morning. But the British were not for turning on this one.
So the problem was tossed to Bertie Ahern and his colleagues to sort out, along with future defence policy, Turkish membership and whether there will be a European Commissioner for every country in the audience as the EU increases to over 20 member-states.
The British forecast 100,000 job losses in the City of London if the proposed 20 per cent withholding tax was applied to its eurobond market. And, they argued, the proposals would not even adequately deal with tax evasion. The money would simply be driven into neighbouring non-EU jurisdictions, places familiar to some members of the Irish financial community.
Not that the tax standoff provoked any handbag-waving or table-thumping of the kind so familiar in the days of Margaret Thatcher when events at EU summits were not going Britain's way. This issue could be resolved another day, - just like the continuing French ban on British beef.
Mr Blair met his French counterpart, Lionel Jospin, to try dialogue and negotiation. After all, the most recent scientific evidence and EU law were on the British side and the other member-states were allowing beef from the UK back on to their shelves.
But after a few brief minutes it was clear the French were not for turning either. A case of British beef - out, out, out.
The matter will now be sorted out in the courts.