Pay attention people

When the MSM deals up articles like Brogan's piece in the Telegraph, it should surprise no one that the mainstream media attracts the fire of bloggers such as Wittering Witney, EU Referendum and Autonomous Mind among many others who have a particularly watchful eye for their failures.  When you read the MSM's work, you sometimes wonder what their fingers are touching when they mistake what they find as the pulse of a nation's viewpoint.

The article however should be admired for the way it has spectacularly missed the point. In it Brogan seems to spot a talent in Cameron when he suggests

Mr Cameron has the leadership knack to know that the opinion of the voters matters more than the grumble of MPs.

Really?  He does? So explain to me the somewhat curious abandonment of manifesto pledges especially on a referendum on Europe, with his weasel words on the matter.

Brogan also gives us this

Tomorrow the backbench business committee is expected to confirm that the House will debate a referendum on EU membership in coming weeks. The vote is not binding but Mr Cameron will want to avoid at all costs a Commons vote in favour of a referendum he does not want to hold. So he will whip his MPs against.

The suggestion here is that a referendum on the EU is something that only vexes a pocket of his MPs and is of no concern to the electorate.

So, if this were to be true, Cameron could not wear the crown of genius placed upon him by Brogan, otherwise why would a referendum have appeared as a manifesto pledge and why do the faux Tories witter on about renegotiation of our relationship with Brussels?

Such behaviour suggests that Conservative high command, are aware of what this means to the British people and the mumblings of a debate and a vote (albeit non binding) suggests that the a lot of the 650 know this too which brings us to the telling aspect of Brogan's piece.

Brogan suggests that Cameron intends to avoid an outcome that will make him look bad and so will bring in the whips.  Well firstly this tells you all you need to know about the leadership - they're not interested in any referendum vote, even a pretend one or a protest one.  They don't want to hear even the merest hint of anger on Europe, beyond the top table's faux posturing for headlines to be consumed by "gullible" voters.

But it tells you something else.  It tells you to keep an eye on the future because we will see what this debate and vote comes to.  If it comes to nothing, it will tell us where the so called rebels are in their relationship to the party whips and the electorate.  If the debate and the vote collapses we will see that the people matter little compared to the whips and that what many of us suspect of our so called democracy will be further underscored.

I'm not sure what to be more worried about - that a journalist cannot see this or that Mme Defarge was seen buying industrial quantities of wool from the local craft shop this weekend.