Cameron’ s best attempts merely underline how much Brussels really is in charge

Poor old Cameron. He has been off this week in Europe for his first real challenge as Prime Minister, standing up for Britain in Europe. He talked a very tough game before he went, claiming that he would seek a budget freeze rather than the absurdly high 6% increase that had been mooted. He thinks he has agreement on a 2.9% rise (although mutterings this weekend suggest it might be a bit premature to say it is agreed) and Downing Street proudly announced this as an important victory, amongst other agreements which Cameron claims he has made. Cameron is right that 2.9% is not a bad result, given the 6% where negotiations started. I am sure it was a hard earned victory to get the tentative agreement on that. But this only goes to underline how inferior we have become next to Europe.

As we know, our own country will face unprecedented cuts in public expenditure over the next few years, and while we face the often unwelcome decisions this will result in, we are told that the European Union is raising its budget by 2.9% and we have to pay for it.

How, then, in this context can 2.9% be announced as a victory?

The fact that it has been touted as such merely emphasises the real relationship we have with Europe. In many respects, we are a mere state in a federal union. The federal government has just told us that their budget needs to increase. We have tried to explain that we are trying to deal with the biggest public deficit since the Second World War, but their decision is final. We simply do not have a say.

Of course, not having a say is something the British public have become used to, particularly on the subject of Europe. Indeed, since the last and only referendum on Europe took place in 1975, you would have to be 53 or older to be a person who actually has had a say on Europe. The European project has changed irrevocably since then, with a great deal of British sovereignty signed away to Brussels.

It remains an unjustifiable disgrace that the country has never been consulted.

Tomorrow, let us see the opportunity and not the difficulty

Cuts, cuts, cuts. Deep, savage - whatever their description, the cuts are coming and they’re going to be damn right nasty. That is all I seem to hear at the moment.

Well, tomorrow the long wait is finally over, and we shall at last see where the government’s nasty cuts will fall. It has undoubtedly been one hell of a job, not least because of the absurd ring fencing of health expenditure and overseas aid. The Tories might well consider that not to ring-fence these two areas would be to break a core manifesto promise. Given that many of their manifesto commitments have been put to one side in the ‘national interest’ of forming the coalition (as is quite understandable) it is a wonder why they cannot also ditch this under the same reasoning. Why on earth should these areas be considered untouchable in the current climate? We will continue to provide aid to foreign countries while policeman and serviceman lose their jobs here. That is a crazy net result of this policy. But of course, the Tories chose these areas specifically as crucial to the strategy of detoxifying the brand- attempting to make people believe that the Tories are the caring and compassionate sort.

Rather than be downcast and cynical on the eve of what will surely be a day of relatively bad news, let us try and see the positives of what will come from tomorrow’s spending review. What grates when the government talks of the cuts is their insistence that these cuts are not ideological. They argue that these cuts are simply necessary because of the current appalling state of the public finances. They say this because it much more palatable for the coalition, while also appealing to the ‘modern conservative’ strategy of dissociating itself with the Tory party of the eighties. In fairness, it is also because it is an easier message to deliver. It conveys the message that ‘I am only doing this because I have to, not because I want to’. The trouble is that this misses a key opportunity to present the cuts in a more positive light. The refusal to accept anything ideological about the cuts is a tacit admission that if they did not have to cut, they would carry on with the spending binge of Labour over the last 13 years. How can that be right? Surely the reality is that these cuts are ideologically the right thing as well as a necessity?

The state is too big, we are taxed too much, the public sector is highly inefficient, bloated and consists of countless layers of utter waste. The argument should be put forward that the cuts, while painful, are the right thing to do. They will reduce the size of the state and the inflated public sector, which in the long run will reduce our tax burden, make our public services more efficient, responsive and local, and ultimately improve our society. This argument needs to be made and reinforced at every opportunity. It needs to achieve the substantial task of drowning out the relentless, one-dimensional media coverage of the cuts - that being, that cuts are bad, simple as that.

To paraphrase the words of Winston Churchill: tomorrow , let’s need not be the pessimist that sees difficulty in every opportunity, but rather the optimist that sees the opportunity in every difficulty.