The mantra within what passes for the brain of your average "one nation" Tory like "Call me Dave" (who isn't a Tory at all really), is that the EU is a GOOD THING for trade. All that nasty stuff about European integration that those continentals rabbit on about can be sorted by continued enlargement. This dilutes the rule of Brussels and allows the classic British stratagem of "divide and rule" to apply, over which the mandarins from Whitehall can benignly exercise their arts. Being a "one nation" Tory also means that there are not enough brain cells to carry two ideas simultaneously, which means that the species goes around bleating "wider not deeper", as the answer to all things EU.

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It is in that context that we must understand the latest exudation from The Boy. He is to urge the EU to drop the anti-Muslim "prejudice" against Turkey, which he says is David Cameron will today demand an end to the 'prejudice' which he claims is blocking Turkey's membership.

France is having its annual CarBQ summer, and Germany is getting worried of its Turkish RoP. Cameron's support for Turkish membership of the EU, just about ensures that France and Germany will never support it.

Did Obama put him up to it?

Cameron knows very well that there is ZERO chance that the great nations of France & Germany and possibly Italy as well as Poland will NEVER, EVER permit the day to dawn when Turkey is permitted to join the EU.

Given this knowledge he is then safe to appear to be the lone pro Turkey voice. It's just politics. As ever with the British, we just want your business............ and Turkey is a large market.

Read between the lines, Europeans pass every rush-of-blood-to-the-head with a 'yeah-yeah' knowing that nothing will ever change. We need to do the same.

No, I think you miss the point ... Cameron believes what he is saying. The one nation Tories have been saying this for decades, and The Boy does not have the intellect to change his policy. It is stitched into the the one-Tory genes.

I trust the Austrian ambassador will have a word in his ear

And the Dutch. But it will make not a blind bit of difference. The ONTs (one nation tories) are impervious to outside influence.

Re. Turkey - the diplomacy phase of Cyprus issue will probably come to a head in the next 12 months or so. It looks increasing unlikely that there will be an agreement. ( If you are cynical, the pro-reunification mood music of a couple of years ago was only ever positioning for the blame game anyway. )

Unlike previous "failures", this time round it is likely to be viewed as definitive, and the international community will lift the sanctions against the North. My prediction - medium term, once the North is legitamised, Turkey will work on destabilising the South.

Enlargement to include Turkey can't happen - won't happen. But that is not the point. The issue is that The Boy thinks it should happen and actually says so!

Are you serious, Dr. North? Do you really believe the 'one nation' theory or are you 'avin a larf? I'd rather believe the previous correspondent who posited that the reason for Cameron's support of Turkey is for business reasons. It makes more sense and I'm desperate to latch onto something resembling a sane explanation for his apparent insanity. Did I read somewhere that the USA supports Turkish entry into the EU for strategic military purposes and Mr C could be carrying out orders from Obama after his recent meeting?
Help me out, somebody.

It is a strategic goal of the US to have Turkey in the EU, so Cameron is perhaps saying this so that Obama will go easier on BP... Cameron is a one world Tory, what an idiot, there will be no such thing as one world unless Islam ends up in the dustbin of history or there are no non-Muslims left... Also once you read the Koran andthe ahadiths you realise that the correct name for Islam is the religion of XENOPHOBIA.

Germany has a strange attitude in terms of Turkey, recently there was a report that worked out that children in devout Muslim famillies were likely to me much more violent, not much of a surprise to those that know...

The way I rationalise Cameron's actions is that, at the top in "national" politics our leaders' primary driver is positioning themselves in the global governance tranzisphere. Contrast reneging on Lisbon with sticking to his guns on AGW during climategate - probably loosing votes in both cases. Vote don't matter that much - the Kinnocks never had to win an election to get where they got. The US, and I would guess the UN and the EU bureaucracy are behind Turkish accession. Legal closure on Cyprus, even if it is by formalising partition, removes one of the stumbling blocks.

Conservative support for the idea of Turkey joining the EU goes back a long time, well before Obama and the BP incident. So while they may be making noises because it suits the moment, it's in line with long term policy.

As for the underlying motives for wanting Turkey to join the EU, I don't know. I'm tempted to think they actually believe this "Europe of Nation States" and "In Europe but not ruled by Europe" stuff. As for saying they want something they know won't be allowed to happen, as a bargaining chip, that's also plausible.

It's very tempting to assume that people like Cameron know what they are talking about and have a thought out goal they'd be willing to set out. It's quite possible that their motives are venal, or tribal or otherwise such they wish to conceal, or they really don't have a clue, but it all sounds pretty good and won't cause them too many problems.

I find his attitude, the Boy that is, extremely strange. It is a given that he is not a "conservative" in any meaningful way, oh alright, any way at all, but I find his outburst in Turkey weird even by his standards. Turkey was intended by it's founder to be a secular society but Erdogan is trying to change that in favour of an Islamic state with all that entails. Now I know that our gum'mint want to kill us all but by stealth, as in no affordable energy or food, but Islam is a different proposition altogether. They just want to kill infidels, us, and have sharia law everywhere. And now we have Cameron comparing Gaza to a concentration camp, not presumably in it's original usage, and berating Israel for trying to defend it's people. Many countries in the ME don't seem to like the people in Gaza either. He is definitely using the lib-dims method of saying to any group what he thinks they want the hear, different message dependant on which group he is speaking to at the time. All most peculiar!
Is there evidence that "the Boy" is not stupid? I only ask because he does believe in AGW and wind farms, or is that purely financial?

Voters don't matter much where AGW and the EU are concerned, because the major parties are pretty well in agreement. Apart from the parties, which are the froth on the surface, there's a powerful establishment in favour of these things which would strike back. I never thought the Tory position on the LT was other than making a commitment they knew they were unlikely to have to live up to, for tactical reasons.

I think there's much in what you say. Being out of office would be preferable to being in office on the condition that they were going to have to confront the EU and dismantle the structures put in place to deal with climate change. Especially when the Euro elections are coming round, the Tories like to play the three nutshells and pea game with their position on the EU.

I've never understood why Turkey is eligible for membership of the European Union.
But then I've never understood why Israel qualifies for the Eurovision Song Contest, so what would I know?