How to break news? Especially news that some may view as good and some may view as bad. Even worse when most of your own voters are not that interested and would prefer you to be concentrating on the economy. The general questions prancing round David Cameron's as he wrestles with six impossible Eurosceptics before breakfast. His right wing are (rightly) enraged by puffed up parliamentarians from Germany and some US functionary from the State Department telling us what they would prefer. These people do not get a veto or a vote; and Cameron better not give them one.
The FT (a pink paper if ever there was one) notes that Cameron's timing could upset the Germans and the French. They will be celebrating their postwar treaty and the speech could draw attention away from the day "hundreds of French and German politicians gather in Berlin" to trough away on another taxpayer paid shindig. How dare Britain prevent the media from providing coverage of this extravaganza? I expect it to make page seven (maybe ten) in Bild.
The FT, after the usual roster of anti-referendum Europhiles (Heseltine, MacShane and Cable) also lays out the location: Brussels, perhaps, or the Netherlands. Location, location, location! If we are going to upstage this Franco-German anniversary, why not hold it directly in Berlin at the embassy? If Denis MacShane is right and the relationship is viewed in religious terms, then heresy at the gates appears an appropriate response. We may get as much spluttering and squawking as we have had from the talking heads in this article.
Alas, the carping may be the most exciting aspect of this speech. Cameron will satisfy no-one and will enrage his critics. The compelling message is "Better off out" and all the scaremongering from the relics is nonsense.
If we leave the EU, we will face declining trade, permanent depression, poverty and mass unemployment ...like Greece, Spain, Portugal, Ireland.....