Here’s a Tory split on Europe you won’t have heard about

Oliver Letwin’s enemies thought they had seen the last of him at Blackpool. His idea of laying out a policy smorgasbord had almost sunk the party, they argued. Yes, there were some good ideas (mainly from Iain Duncan Smith) but having multi-millionaires like Zac Goldsmith proposing a Happy Planet Index and telling the shoppers not to use supermarket car parks was disastrous. Presenting contradictory policies to the public did not make the party look open-minded, it was argued, but downright schizophrenic.

Once David Cameron fought his way out by deciding hard-headed policies for himself and announcing them at the Blackpool party conference, it was assumed he had learnt his lesson and would leave Mr Letwin to terrorise Rothschilds with his talk of ‘aroma’. But those attending the policy meetings of the 1922 Committee this week, where the leadership lays out its stall to backbenchers, have found a cheery Mr Letwin turning up to introduce the sessions. He is back as policy chief, released from Tamzin Lightwater’s ‘Tranquillity Room’, helping decide which ideas the party will pick.

So instead of calm nerves, there is a sense of urgency — and not a little panic — to the debate being held in the party. Should Mr Cameron pursue the radical strategy which apparently saved him at Blackpool? Or should the party tread softly, wary of disturbing its best opinion-poll ratings in 15 years? How far should it promise to devolve power, moving to this ‘post-bureaucratic era’ Mr Cameron has mentioned in recent speeches? Should it develop a muscular approach to Europe, or work within the status quo?

The astonishing turnaround in opinion polls has served only to unsettle emotions further. ‘How could approval switch so quickly from a Prime Minister without vision to an untested shadow Cabinet which has yet to articulate what it stands for?’ asks one shadow minister.