Going up in the lift in Strasbourg with Nigel Farage, he tells me that the Labour Party should be delighted with him and the inroads UKIP is making into the Tory party. I concured that even the darkest of clouds (UKIP) can have a silver lining.

Last week's defection of two Tory peers to UKIP, the revelation that nine Tory MPs have signed up to UKIP's 'Better Off Out!' manifesto and the announcement that two huge party donors (Stanley Kalms & Stuart Wheeler) may now throw their support behind UKIP, do indeed seem to be causing Cameron to panic.

He has told the Telegraph that he's the heir to Thatcher and promised to resist any European integration, to opt out from the Social Chapter, Keep the Pound, and oppose any new EU Constitution

So much for what he said in Brussels scarcely a month ago (see here.

But of course, he's caught in a cleft stick. Appear too reasonable on Europe, and lose some of his rabid eurosceptics to UKIP. Appear too eurosceptic, and lose credibility as a serious leader and lose votes to Labour or the Lib Dems.

That's why Cameron hopes Europe will go away as an issue, allowing him to ignore it. Unfortunately for him, the debate on the Constitutional Treaty, with the large majority of European countries having now ratified it and wanting to salvage as many as possible of the reforms it contains, will ensure that European issues will not go away.

And Farage is right to say that, in electoral terms, it is Labour that stands to gain.