The Government appeared to pour cold water on Centrica's revival of its proposed all-paper merger with British Energy yesterday by coming out strongly in favour of the languishing EDF deal. After speculation at the weekend that Centrica was to renew is proposition for a merger after the collapse of the French take-over talks last week, the comp-any said yesterday that it was in discussions with a third party with a view to taking a minority ownership position in British Energy, subject to various conditions – one of which is that the third party successfully acquires the nuclear group.