Used To Hearing

"That's something I'm used to hearing from this side of the House", quipped Cameron when Kelvin Hopkins demanded the end of the Common Fisheries Policy. Really? Until the dying days of the Major Government, when the tiniest handful of Conservatives switched sides on this issue, that party's every single MP voted year on year in favour of the CFP, with every single Labour MP voting against.

Cameron reversed Michael Howard's commitment to withdraw from it, and the media had ignored David Davis's meaningful polcy of doing so in favour of Cameron's meaningless promise to change the seating plan in the European Parliament.

Mind you, the Lib Dems are also on his side now. Like Labour, they and their predecessors voted annually against the CFP. Why are there no longer such votes? And maybe he means them? After all, this extremely illiberal Policy hits hard at their constituents from Cornwall, round North Norfolk, Berwick-upon-Tweed and North East Fife, to the North of Scotland.