Calamity Clegg.

Still one thing to be said for David Cameron is that he isn't Nick Clegg who has been behaving like a weasel over the EU not-a-constitution-honest treaty. After barely two months in the job he has put his MPs in the position whereby if they fulfill the commitments they made in their own manifesto they will be punished. Sticking with the Ming era policy of demanding a referendum on whether we are in or out of Europe instead of a referendum on the actual treaty itself isn't just a betrayal of their own manifesto but is politically stupid.

It's one thing for the government to break their promise over a referendum because the consequences for them of losing a referendum are worse than reconfirming that they're liars, but for an opposition party that doesn't hold the balance of power it is simply admitting that they are fraudsters without gaining any benefit in kind. Whilst being eurofanatics the Liberal Democrats don't want actually want a vote they would lose nothing by pretending that they are democrats. If anything by sending the entire parliamentary party to flounce out of the Commons after Ed Davey beclowned himself, Nick Clegg has taken the spotlight away from the government's own shortcomings and highlighted his own.

. Propping up an unpopular government in return for nothing shows the kind of political acumen that makes Lord Sutch look like Karl Rove.

It isn't even a question of whether a referendum is right or wrong, but whether it is okay to promise to support one and then ditch the idea after the election.