Jon Craig October 24, 2011 5:34 PM
My word, the Prime Minister's oratory must be breathtaking.
At the end of an emotional plea at lunchtime to Tory PPSs - that's the unpaid ministerial bag-carriers - not to vote against an EU referendum, one MP present apparently fainted.
The poor chap was Mark Menzies, MP for Fylde in the gin and Jag belt on the Lancashire coast. He's obviously used to bracing sea air, not the Prime Minister's stuffy office in the House of Commons.
"It was very hot in the room," one of David Cameron's inner circle told me. "The PM didn't know anything about it, but he went to see him in the room next door, where he was being treated by paramedics."
It was a dramatic start to the Commons showdown betwen the PM and rebel Tory MPs. And, it has to be said, a lot more dramatic than the debate in the chamber.
As the Tory MP David Nuttall opened the debate by talking about the public demand for a referendum, I couldn't help noticing that the public gallery of the Commons was barely a quarter full.
The Tory benches were full. And the usual suspects - Bill Cash, Patrick Jenkin, Philip Davies - were on their feet with interventions early on in the debate, making all-too-familiar arguments.
But the debate burst into life when Tory MP Adam Holloway, PPS to the Europe Minister David Lidington, dramatically announced in his speech that he would vote for an EU referendum and therefore resign.
Just before the debate got underway, David Cameron spent a large part of his statement on the weekend EU summit appealing to Tory MPs to vote against a referendum.
His most startling comment came when he suggested there should have been a referendum on the Maastricht Treaty in 1992.
Hold on! Wasn't he working for the then Chancellor, Norman Lamont, as his special adviser back then?
He most certainly was.
Was this yet another example of our Prime Minister casually tossing a little sop to his Euro-sceptic back benchers?
Probably.
But I almost fainted, too, when I heard him say that.
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