The House of Commons is in a febrile, nervy mood this afternoon. No-one is quite happy with anyone else. David Cameron raised a cheer when he told MPs that he will not pay the €2bn bill apparently sprung on him by the European Commission, but he had very little to say when pressed by Labour on how this surprise was quite so surprising given Treasury ministers were mentioning it in letters months ago. Ken Clarke made backbenchers glower and opposition MPs howl with glee when he told the Chamber he sympathised with the Prime Minister for being surprised by something everyone in the Foreign Office and Treasury had known about for months. Just to endear himself to the members around him, Clarke also defended the European Arrest Warrant. He may have helped Cameron by galvanising his Eurosceptic colleagues against him.
The Labour attack line is that while the Commission has, in Ed Miliband’s words, been ‘cack-handed’, the government has made even more of a mess of things.
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