Dr Julian Lewis: Trying, as always, to see the bright side of life – I am not going to sing it – is there not something to be said for having an obvious and overt federalist as Commission president rather than a covert and rather cleverer alternative?

[The Prime Minister: My hon. Friend is ingenious in seeing a silver lining in every cloud. I had not got him down as one of nature’s out-and-out optimists, but I will have to reassess that judgment. We will now have to deal openly and frankly with the new Commission president if he is endorsed by the European Parliament. He did say in his manifesto – although he was not standing specifically in Britain, as it were – that we have to address the issues of reform that Britain has put on the table, and we now need to make sure that we hold him to that.]