Charles Moore in The Telegraph is proposing that David Cameron keeps us waiting just a little longer for his speech on "Europe". He should deliver it on 29 January. Then, says the Great Sage, it will be 50 years to the day since de Gaulle vetoed British entry into the European Economic Community. It would thus be "a fitting moment to mark a new course".

The only trouble is that de Gaulle actually delivered his rejection in a speech on 14 January 1963, the famous put-down: Britain was "insular, maritime …", etc, adding that Britain was "profoundly different from the continental states".

For sure, the actual veto was not formally cast until later, in a meeting of the Six which began in Brussels on 28 January 1963. We have it in The Great Deception that the actual veto was cast on that day, and Heath, Britain's chief negotiator, was apprised of de Gaulle's action at the time.

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That must have been up for all of 30 seconds before I spotted and corrected it. Unlike Mr Moore, with his legion of fact-checkers, I have to do my own proof-reading (with the help of readers), so the final stage is on-screen. You can make clever-daft comments, but the fact is that there is a difference between uncorrected typos, and errors in historical fact.

Edited by user 19 January 2013 14:02:19(UTC)  | Reason: Not specified

Without wishing to trivialize the distress of the people involved in the Algerian hostage situation but we are only considering about 10 Britons.This would normally not be considered of such seriousness that it would result in a major speech, that has the potential to completely change British history, being postponed.

Could Cameron be awaiting the final amendments from Washington? Joking aside the disconnect between the political and media classes and the general public is really shown up by the importance the former place on the so-called "Special Relationship."

Does anyone outside the bubble care if the UK's relationship with the USA is adversely affected by us leaving the EU?

It's all in the Great Deception. He wanted to stitch up the financial instrument to pay for the CAP, before he allowed the UK to enter. That way he could rig it that France was the major beneficiary and Germany (followed by the UK when it joined) would have to pay for it.

Well explained here: http://www.eureferendum....ogview.aspx?blogno=77218

(The CAP, contrary to myth, was not designed to protect inefficient French farmers, of whom there were few. It was designed to protect efficient French farmers, of whom there were too many.)