Easily pleased

Attendees of party conferences are like little children at a birthday party. As long as all the right words are said, they are happy. I shall fisk Hague's speech later on but, at present, I need to allude only to the same old rubbish courageous statement about the EU.

It seems that the EU "has many faults". No kidding. The party faithful were delighted by that extraordinarily courageous statement. Gosh, how brave. Shows that the coalition government and its Foreign Secretary will stand up for British interests. The fact that so far they have done nothing of the kind seems to have escaped their attention.

Then we got the usual verbiage about locking a referendum into place for any future major transfer of power.

The sovereignty clause will be inserted into the forthcoming EU bill, which will also provide a 'referendum lock' requiring a public vote before more powers are transferred from London to Brussels.

"A sovereignty clause on EU law will place on the statute book this eternal truth: what a sovereign parliament can do, a sovereign parliament can also undo," Mr Hague said, to applause.

"It will not alter the existing order in relation to EU law. But it will put the matter beyond speculation."

Indeed. Please pay attention. There will be no referendum on EU membership and all that has already been agreed on will be handed over without the slightest peep coming out of the Cleggeron Coalition and its benighted Foreign Secretary. Really worth applauding