Angela Merkel is misunderstood. Last winter, when Russia moved to annex Crimea after the overthrow of Ukraine’s government, American officials put it about that the German Chancellor had described Russia’s leader Vladimir Putin as ‘living in another world’ and ‘out of touch with reality’. No evidence has emerged that she ever said any such thing.
Europhiles in the press and in Westminster have now pulled the same trick on David Cameron. The Prime Minister has lately been ruminating about quotas for migrants from certain European Union countries. He complained last month when an unannounced £1.7 billion upward adjustment in Britain’s EU payment turned out to be triple the levy on anyone else. (France and Germany are getting rebates of around a billion euros apiece, and George Osborne hopes to negotiate some sort of delay or reduction for Britain.) Cameron has pushed back a long-planned Europe speech till after the 20 November Rochester by-election, a sign he believes he’ll lose it to Ukip.
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