It’s like the night before Christmas

It feels a little like Christmas with all the feverish expectations and speculations, hopes and requests: On Friday (18 January) David Cameron, the UK’s Prime Minister, is finally going to make his speech about Europe or, to be quite precise, what he perceives as Britain’s future inside or outside the European Union.

Perhaps, I had better qualify that again. Mr Cameron has already made it clear that he cannot envisage Britain’s future outside the European Union though he does not want t...