Why is he here?
David Cameron had never expected to have to renegotiate with the EU with a view to a referendum, because he had thought that a hung Parliament was going to enable him to blame the Lib Dems for the dropping of the whole idea.
Forced to come up with anything, it turns out to be a lot less than Ed Miliband would have demanded at any routine European Council.
As in 1975, the referendum would be on the renegotiated terms or withdrawal, with no third option. Even the BBC is already carefully phrasing the Labour line as "likely to" or "expected to" advocate staying in.
But that would depend on the terms. So far, things are not looking promising for Cameron. He is not going to get much in the end, if even his opening bid is so "modest".
Why is he bothering at all, anyway? He cut UKIP's meagre Commons presence in half, and that party is now in the process of dissolving itself.
But the Tories just cannot leave Europe alone. It destroyed their last Prime Minister, it destroyed the one before that, and it went no small way to destroying even the one before her.
It is already starting to destroy this one, too.
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