Trick and Treaty

David Cameron has been a Conservative long enough to know defeat when he sees it. After years of bribing, cajoling and bullying, the European Union has won. It will soon have the powers it asked for when drawing up its constitution five years ago. It has ignored the ‘no’ votes in France and the Netherlands, renamed the Lisbon Treaty, couched it in language so technocratic that even lawyers cannot bring themselves to read it.