Relaxed and stoical, the PM conquered his inner Flashman

By QUENTIN LETTS, PARLIAMENTARY SKETCHWRITER

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Calm: Mr Cameron's demeanour is a far cry from the panic of the Press

Calm: Mr Cameron's demeanour is a far cry from the panic of the Press

David Cameron’s enemies try to suck both ends of  the yoghurty Frube tube. They shriek that he is too relaxed – and at the same time accuse him of having a short temper.

The people who moan that he should ‘get a grip’ are  frequently the same folk who disliked Tony Blair and  Alastair Campbell for being ‘control freaks’.

He was in relaxed, stoical mode when he came to the Commons to make a Statement on the latest European summit.

He did so after a weekend which had seen Fleet Street succumbing to a prolonged bout of class-war hysterics. National supplies of smelling salts are running low. Come to think of it, Sal Volatile would be a good name for a newspaper agony aunt.

Sir Tony Baldry (Con, Banbury) asked Mr Cameron if he had seen the front page of the French newspaper, Le Figaro. According to Sir Tony, that fine organ had declared that high taxes in France were harming Paris’s prospects as a financial centre.

Mr Cameron replied that he had not seen Le Figaro but, ‘given all the other front pages there have been recently, I think I should go and read it at once’.

Classic Cameron: acknowledge the media mob’s clamour while popping some of its self-importance with humour. He argued that low taxation was desirable and that the City of London must be protected. The City comprised 40 per cent of Europe’s financial sector. That gave a British premier particular legitimacy when it came to formulating EU policy on finance houses.

Watching yesterday, it was hard to believe that this was a PM ‘out of his depth’ (as one supposedly right-wing newspaper yesterday claimed) or in ‘meltdown’ (various Jeremiahs of the left).

Muttley the dog laughs: Balls and Miliband (file picture)

Muttley the dog laughs: Balls and Miliband (file picture)

He took an hour of questions at the despatch box and remained pretty sunny throughout. Ed Balls and Edward Miliband sat opposite, waving their hands in the air, doing pigs-will-fly gestures, slapping their foreheads, wiping their faces with theatrical dismay, doing Muttley the dog laughs, etc. Mr Cameron managed to conquer his inner Flashman and ignore them.

He produced answers on Eurozone banking-union proposals, the small print of Russian politics, immigration numbers in Greece, to name but a few.

He also, in a blatant partisan moment, dwelt on the loopier aspects of the European Socialist Group, to which our Labour party belongs.

He said that Labour’s Socialist colleagues included communists from Poland, Holocaust deniers from Romania and gay-bashers from Bulgaria. What a bunch of charmers.

Lord knows what they make of aristocrat Harriet Harman.

Conservative Eurosceptics offered some support, among them Bill Cash (Stone) and George Eustice (Camborne, Redruth & Hayle). Bernard Jenkin (Con, N Essex) was initially unpersuaded by an answer Mr Cameron gave on banking-union policy but later gave a firm ‘hear-hear’ when Mr Cameron expanded on his answer when replying to another MP.

 
   

More from Quentin Letts for the Daily Mail...

Mr Miliband, some of whose speech was inaudible to my cloth ears, felt that Mr Cameron was doing nothing for European growth and that the PM was isolated at these European summits.

Mr Cameron claimed that Britain had been at the front of European policy on oil sanctions against Iran, pressure on Syria and trade deals with America and Singapore.

Peter Bone (Con, Wellingborough), very much on the Right of the party, pressed Mr Cameron to give us a European referendum.

Mr Cameron, before replying, offered Mr Bone a happy recent 60th birthday and hoped that his belated card had arrived.

Mr Bone glowed with pleasure. Mr Cameron then explained – one of many times – that he wants a referendum but that it should be on a new British deal with the European Union, rather than on us leaving the EU altogether.

Philip Davies (Con, Shipley), with a hint of menace, told him ‘it would be in his very best interests’ if he gave us a proper in-out referendum rather than an in-in one.

Mr Cameron still has plenty of problems but he is far from the disarray some panic-fetishists allege.

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