Boris beats two loud drums

Boris Johnson’s interventions today are another reminder of his ability to please the Tory tribe, and be a thorn in Cameron’s side. The prime minister has concluded that the best approach on Europe is to argue that the Eurozone needs to follow through on the logic of the single currency and move to fiscal union. This is not a popular position in the Tory party. From the Cabinet down there are doubts about the wisdom of it; I understand that Justine Greening told last week’s Cabinet meeting that she did not believe that a transfer union could be made to work.

But no senior Tory expresses their disagreement with this policy more often or more publicly than the Mayor of London. In his Telegraph column, he bemoans how ‘we are all meant to be conniving in a plan to create a fiscal union which (if it were to mean anything) would mean undermining the fundamentals of Western democracy.’