Second class mind

Time was when the height of Cameron's ambition was to go to EU heads of government and return with ... concessions on the working time directive. How we derided his poverty of aspiration. How we agreed with Iain Martin that Cameron had shown himself a manager who would never make history.

Now even that paltry objective has been abandoned, and it is The City that Cameron wants to protect.

As Damian Reece points out, this is another example of Britain seeking to defend an isolated position.

Row after political row over Europe and our relationship with the Continent have been exercises in the purely negative, without ever articulating what we do want.

What is the UK government's vision of the EU? What is its strategy to move us there? Or are we just tugging on eurocrats' coat tails to slow down integration in a bloc which we feel we have to belong to for reasons of trade, but whose political direction we abhor?

For the time being we are world's sixth largest economy. If we see ourselves as a global trading nation, says Reece:

We should be aiming to be a global hub, and therefore Europe's hub, for new technologies such as nano-technology, life sciences, pharmaceuticals, high-end manufacturing, research and development, education, design, entertainment, not forgetting financial services, volume car making, tourism and specialist engineering to name a few.

Let's hope this doesn't mean a return to the government picking winners losers. But a global hub requires good facilities:

Hong Kong's airport has been voted the world's number one transport hub seven times in 10 years. It has the world's third-largest container port. This sort of infrastructure is no accident. We could be Europe's trade hub again but our commercial arteries are too small and choked with traffic. Heathrow is a liability, not an asset.

It is a second class mind that tries to muddle along from one crisis to the next, picking at bits of the status quo to try to protect.

A first class government would articulate a vision of Britain's place in the world, and persuade the country that it is the right vision. Policies then are formed to realise the vision - actually an easier process than wandering around in a mental fog picking areas here and there to try to defend.

But Cameron has a second class mind.