The Tories’ Euro Curse

I happened to be on the phone to the Foreign Office press office late this afternoon when I heard a huge cheer go up. The press officer I was speaking to laughed nervously. “The Lisbon Treaty has been signed”, she said. So who was cheering? It surely can’t have been independent civil servants. I guess it must have been a large group of ministers and special advisers who just happened to be walking past the press officer at just that moment.

Whoever it was, they were cheering at the expense of David Cameron. The Tory leader’s twin strategy for appeasing the eurosceptic wing of the modern Tory Party has left him isolated at home and in Europe. His promise of a referendum is dead and his decision to leave the European People’s Party is looking increasingly eccentric.