First thoughts about David Cameron's EU referendum announcement -
One, obviously it's being done to stop the leaking of Tory support away to UKIP.
Two, five years is an awful long time in politics, and a lot can change (look back an equivalent distance to the sunlit uplands of early 2008 and weep for glad confident morning lost). It's possible that things will look much better in the Eurozone in five years time, but it's equally possible that things will look even more of a shambles than they do at present. (There's an interesting piece about this in the Torygraph here). Moreover, as discussed on this site a couple of weeks ago, by next year the doors will have been opened to Romanians and Bulgarians to come to the UK and work. If there is anything like a repeat of the Polish debacle ten years ago, public annoyance at our inability to control our own borders will be even higher after the next election than it is now.
In other words, it's possible that disenchantment with all things European will be greater, and that any concessions David Cameron has managed to wring from EU will not be sufficient to guarantee Europhiles winning an In-Out referendum.
I suspect Cameron would want to stay in the EU even if he can't extract any significant treaty changes. In which case he may find himself regretting today's promise. For anyone running a great enterprise - a nation state, an orchestra, a family - it can be a mistake to ask constituents what they want. It won't necessarily be the same thing you want.
Cameron is gambling that no unforeseen event will make his promise look like a mistake. The words "hostage" and "fortune" spring to mind.
