DAVID CAMERON finally managed last week to deliver his long-anticipated speech on Britain and the EU.

Not abroad as he had twice intended, but in the London offices of international investment advisors, Bloomberg LP.

Clearly, there was great urgency in the matter, for Mr Cameron not only accepted a third-best venue but began his speech, to a hastily-convened audience, at 8am. And if his listeners didn’t already realise the issue was pressing, they could be in no doubt when Mr Cameron announced: “It is time for the British people to have their say.”

You might have expected ballot papers for the referendum to be available at the back of the room – or any post office or Tesco – but 2017 is the earliest date. Good grief – some of us can’t be confident of being around.

Mr Cameron himself can’t be confident of being in No.10, which is one of two big ifs behind the referendum. The other is that he will have successfully renegotiated Britain’s position within the EU. Of course, he avoided “if”.

Instead, he confidently declared: “When we have negotiated that new settlement we will give the British people a referendum.”

He then sidestepped questions about what would happen if the “when” was not fulfilled.

More crucially, and earning full marks for adroitness, Mr Cameron also sidestepped the massive head on collision between his vision of a looser relationship with Europe and the EU’s goal of ever-closer union. For long deliberately obscured but now out in the open, the statehood aim is mirrored in the name changes down the decades – from the Common Market, through the European Economic Community to the European Union.

Curiously, though, while all members are theoretically equal, some seem more equal than others. Thus Mr Cameron’s EU speech spawned a headline: “Merkel hints at deal for Cameron.” No hint, however, of the views of the German Chancellor’s counterparts in, for example, Slovenia, Estonia and Malta.

Mr Cameron has refused to specify which powers he wishes to “repatriate” from the EU. It’s almost irrelevant since the EU percolates even where it is not always apparent.

The break-up of the Royal Mail, threatening its universal same-price delivery, was dictated by EU competition laws.

A few years ago, thousands of road bridges were strengthened to meet new EU standards.

That might, or might not, have been sensible. But have we ever not maintained bridges safely?

What I find particularly depressing is the view that we can’t afford to quit the EU, because this would discourage investors and cost us access to the single market.

Britain already belongs to Efta, the European Free Trade Association. Besides, what a confession of national weakness to argue that we can survive only within the shelter of a power bloc.

Britain’s lead in the Industrial Revolution had no political base. Is it naive to believe that if our national product, by which I mean everything from the environment to manufactured goods, is of sufficient quality the world will buy it, whether in the form of tourism or machine tools? Anyway, that is the challenge.

But the very worst aspect of the EU debate is that it seems to be confined to economics.

Where stands democracy?

Ours is flawed enough. Within the EU it doesn’t exist. We’re throwing away 1,000 years of struggle to get some grip on our government.