The prime minister is coming to the White House to make the case for a new EU-US trade deal, a free trade area that he says could mean £10bn a year to the British economy. He calls it a once-in-a-generation prize that could help build a more dynamic world economy.

The deal would cut tariffs and trade barriers and harmonise regulation so that a product approved in the UK could automatically be sold in the US. Mr Cameron says he hopes to give the deal a boost by starting formal talks with President Obama at next month's G8 summit in Northern Ireland. But those talks could take some years, years that presume Britain's continued membership of the EU, something that the US has said it wants to continue, and which many Conservatives do not.

From his body language and tone of voice, the prime minister is clearly irritated by the growing debate about Europe. While he visits Washington, Boston and New York, Tory MPs are clamouring for a debate on the UK's future relationship with the EU. He knows he will have to shout loudly to get his voice heard on the other issues he wishes to raise here on his three day trip. But raise them he will:

1. Syria. The PM hopes to put what he calls "flesh on the bones" of the plan for some kind of international peace conference. He says his talks with President Putin of Russia last week were "a positive and good conversation" and there was a "recognition that it would be in all our interests to have a safe and secure Syria". He will discuss the next steps with President Obama. He says: "We have a long way to go. But I am looking to turn this proposal into a peace conference and that will make a real difference."

2. The G8 summit. The UK is currently holding the G8 presidency and the trade bloc's leaders will gather in Northern Ireland next month. The key issue is Mr Cameron's attempt to persuade countries to be more transparent about their tax systems and agree to crack down on tax evasion. The aim is to encourage developing nations to open up their markets to the world by giving them confidence that they will get decent tax revenues as their economies grow. Some NGOs say Mr Cameron will only achieve this if he tackles tax transparency in British dependent territories. But he says: "I am confident we are going to make progress on this," and is looking to get what he calls "America's full support for this agenda".

3. Boston bombings. Mr Cameron will visit FBI headquarters in Washington to discuss what Britain can learn from the way the US authorities respond to bombings and other major incidents. Alongside the new head of MI5, Andrew Parker, the PM will see the FBI's strategic operations centre that runs around the clock, and has 400 staff and more than a thousand phone lines. And we have Cabinet Office Briefing Room A, otherwise known as Cobra. "We need to learn the lessons of what happened in Boston and compare notes on the issue," he said.

4. Development goals. On his trip, Mr Cameron will visit the UN to discuss his latest plans to update the millennium development goals. He says he wants to "nail down some simple commitments that everyone can get behind".

That, at least, is Mr Cameron's agenda. But it will be Europe that will follow him around like a bad smell on this trip. And he won't be able to hold his nose forever.

I have obtained a copy of an exchange of letters between childcare minister Liz Truss and deputy prime minister Nick Clegg, last December.

It makes clear that Ms Truss flagged up the change in ratios of carers to children as "the most high profile of my proposals".

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Mr Clegg in his reply just before Christmas gives her the clearance to press ahead with the consultation as long as it proved affordable within the Education department's budgets.

Some Tory sources ask why Mr Clegg did not raise his concerns about safety and impracticality at the time.

They also claim that Mr Clegg agreed to the new childcare ratios and it was simply the new levels of qualifications that were up for consultation.

But the Lib Dems insist that Mr Clegg signed up to a consultation, not a policy, and they are simply responding to the concerns many thousands of people have raised.

It was never disputed, they say, that Mr Clegg backed the consultation.

Who ever said policymaking in coalition was easy?

1. They are preparing for more than 350 losses at Thursday's local elections. "It is going to be very grisly," one said. Expectation management aside, that is getting into quite significant numbers.

2. They expect to do better in more marginal, battleground areas where they are fighting and campaigning hard. They expect to do less well in safe areas where the local Tory parties have no tradition of having to fight for every vote. One county that keeps being mentioned in this regard is Surrey.

3. They acknowledge that UKIP is a wild card that makes predictions hard without decent data for recent council by-elections. But they expect UKIP will do well enough to send some Tory councils over the edge into no-overall-control, with the Tories potentially being forced to govern in coalition with UKIP councillors. Now there is a thought...

Next week's local elections will provide her with the first opportunity to start living up to that commitment.

And the Greens clearly have some way to go. The last time these county council and unitary authority seats were up for election in 2009, the party won just 17 councillors. Overall, across all local authorities, they have just 138 councillors.

The Greens have some support in counties like Oxfordshire, Norfolk and Suffolk. But Ms Bennett tells me she wants to get councillors in places where they have none today, places like Essex, Surrey and Cornwall; and she wants to pick up more councillors in counties like Hertfordshire and the West Midlands.

So they are putting up more than 900 candidates in 94% of the councils that are holding elections, more than before but certainly not a full slate. The party is quite excited that they have a candidate in the Isles of Scilly.

The Green pitch to the electorate is in part quite traditional - promises that their councillors will protect the greenbelt and oppose incinerators. But there is also quite a populist strain to the campaign: they are opposing some spending cuts; promising to expand bus services and spend more on railways; and they are supporting more 20 mph road limits particularly outside schools.

The question is whether anyone is listening. Voters appear restive, often reluctant to support the larger parties. And yet all the opinion polls and recent by-elections suggest that it is UKIP that is poised to pick up the protest vote, not the Greens.

That is the challenge for the Greens, to shape their left-of-centre, environmental populism to pick up on the anti-politics mood so the field is not left open to UKIP.

Declaration of interest: I once worked with Natalie Bennett on The Times. And yes, it is true that she is the only party leader who knows how to shear a sheep.

So I thought I would spend an evening with the UKIP leader to find out why. We had a quick chat over a pint and then I watched him perform at a public meeting in West Sussex.

Here are a few conclusions:

Nigel Farage excites his party.

The meeting at the community hall in Watersfield near Pulborough was packed. The car park spilled over; there was traffic queuing down the road. Some 250 people chose to give up a bright evening in April to come to listen to a politician.

And inside the hall there was the kind of buzz that I have not seen for some time. It was standing room only. Unlike the rather staged public meetings involving the larger party leaders, people were engaged and excited. For some, it looked like fun. All this in leafy West Sussex.

Mr Farage intrigues voters.

In a show of hands, half the audience said they were not UKIP members. Many I spoke to said they were just curious. They wanted to come and see what the fuss was about. Many were mildly unhappy with the larger political parties they had previously voted for and were intrigued to give UKIP a look. There was a lot of grey hair in the audience but not uniformly so. There were some young people and a couple of parents had brought their kids along.

Mr Farage frustrates his opponents.

Some in the audience were Tories. Several were clearly riled by UKIP's success in stealing their voters. So why were they here? "You need to know your enemy," said one.

Mr Farage rides an anti-establishment wave with ease.

His pitch is that the three larger parties are virtually indistinguishable, led by a small group of people from the same political elite "who have never done a real day's work in their lives". He talks frequently of "the madness of the political classes".

And he skillfully ties his issues together. For example, he attacks wind farms initially by arguing that they do not generate energy efficiently. But he then talks about how subsidies for green energy represent a massive transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich. And one of those is a man called Sir Reginald Sheffield who, he claims, gets £1,000 a day for putting wind farms on his land. And he just happens to be Samantha Cameron's father. And so we are back to the establishment again.

Mr Farage has successfully broadened UKIP's appeal away from Europe.

The anti-European Union rhetoric is still there - the democratic deficit, the waste, the fraud - but now it segues into other issues, particularly immigration, and particularly immigration from Bulgaria and Romania. When he declares: "Now is the time to put the interests of our working men and women first", there was strong applause.

But he also wins support by attacking the planned HS2 high speed railway and county council waste and high salaries to their officials. Interestingly, he does not mention gay marriage but it does come up unprompted.

Mr Farage poses as the everyman politician, a ordinary man who fell into politics almost accidently.

He talks about his own life as a former financier - "I worked hard in the City for 20 years up until lunch time". He does self-deprecating better than most in a way that puts him on the side of his audience. "I am surprised to see so many fruitcakes, eccentrics, cranks and gadflies here tonight," he says.

Mr Farage has stamina.

For a man with a pretty damaged back following his plane crash in 2010, with a pretty unhealthy beer-and-fags lifestyle, he has extraordinary energy. His non-stop election tour of the country would test most politicians. But somehow, for now at least, he keeps going, even if he does need a cushion for his back.

Mr Farage has a network of unofficial party offices embedded in every community in the country.

They are called pubs. Every time I interview Mr Farage, there is always a pub close by. He uses them as unofficial offices and meeting places.

But more importantly he says: "every pub is a parliament". Pubs are where people talk and the spread the word. And for many, the word is UKIP. Food for thought perhaps for other parties obsessing about how best to use twitter and other forms of social media to get their message to the voters.

But:

Mr Farage is an acquired taste for some.

Not everyone there was convinced by him and the earthy humour and bald slogans that poured from his mouth. When he joked about his German wife - "No one can tell me about the dangers of living in a German dominated household" - you could see some people wince.

His team sell a rather low-grade tea towel bearing the face of Herman Van Rompuy, the president of the EU council, with the slogan "genuine Belgian damp rag".

One audience member told me: "He has the gift of the gab but I could never trust him." Another said: "It is all smoke and mirrors." Some complained that there were not enough chances to ask him questions.

UKIP can still be unprofessional.

During his speech, a slide projector light was shining in his face throughout. After his rousing speech, the meeting was deflated by a long and dull speech by a Tory councillor who justified his recent defection to UKIP. Their slogan: "Stop open door EU immigration - you know it makes sense" is uncomfortably close to the Monster Raving Loony party's "Vote for insanity - you know it makes sense." This is still a growing party.

My conclusion:

Mr Farage's pitch is attractive to voters. "Stop moaning about the News at Ten and say you are going to do something about it," he says. "Give us a couple of bob. Put up a sign in your window. Bore your friends into submission."

And he is not without ambition. "I don't know what is going to happen in May, whether it will be a large dent of a huge explosion."

But he explicitly says it should be seen as a "dress rehearsal" for next year's European elections. "I believe we have the opportunity to win those elections across the entire UK and cause an earthquake across British politics. We are playing for very high stakes indeed. We are on the edge of a democratic revolution. Please help make it succeed."

For me the most lasting memory of my evening with UKIP is this one thought.

In past elections Nigel Farage asked voters to "lend us your vote", a tacit acknowledgement that voting UKIP was a temporary, protest vote. Now however he doesn't say that. He now says "give us your vote".

And if voters do that then UKIP could become the fourth party of British politics that they hope to become.

And today many came. Crowds lined the streets of London as her coffin processed to St Paul's, many applauding as the cortege passed. There were some mild protests but nothing to what the British public in the past has been capable of.

When Lord Castlereagh - the foreign secretary who helped defeat Napoleon and bring peace to Europe at the Congress of Vienna - committed suicide in 1822 by cutting his own throat, his coffin was booed as it was carried into Westminster Abbey.

A contemporary account recorded: "The funeral procession to Westminster Abbey was attended by an immense concourse of people, who, while the coffin was being removed from the late peer's residence to the hearse, and again from the hearse to the Abbey, vented their joy at his death in shouts of exultation."

There was none of that along the Strand, Fleet Street and Ludgate Hill. Instead, a military procession and ceremonial funeral - a state occasion in all but name - to mark the passing of an old lady with dementia who suffered a fatal stroke.

For some, the funeral will draw a line after 10 days of national debate prompted by Lady Thatcher's death, a debate not just about her past but also our future. As the Bishop of London, the Right Reverend Richard Chartres said in his address: "After the storm of a life led in the heat of political controversy, there is a great calm."

Her disciples and detractors will no doubt continue to discuss her legacy but now perhaps from the confines of Conservative dining clubs and the dusty corridors of academia. The great constitutional historian, Peter Hennessy, said: "She now passes into the hands of the historians."

Politicians of all colours will no longer rush to clasp Lady Thatcher to their bosom, each claiming that they are the inheritors of a small piece of her conviction, reinterpreting the myth for their own purposes.

The question of whether or not the funeral was over the top - or even political - is now academic. The complaints about Parliament being recalled for a day of tributes and Prime Minister's Questions being cancelled are over.

The newspapers and broadcasters will find something else to talk about, still puzzled by the polls pointing to Lady Thatcher's continued popularity while their readership and audience numbers hint at less interest in their coverage of her death.

The row over whether a distasteful song about dead witches should be given air time will fade in the memory. Life will move on. One Lib Dem blogger chose the middle of the funeral service to post his musings on "what's going to happen to the Lib Dems in the local elections?".

And yet, is that it? Is it time to draw breath and move on? Well, not quite. There is still the matter of the cost of the funeral that is irking some. The detailed figures will be released in the weeks to come and there will be a row, not just over the cost but also about the way they have been calculated and whether or not the military costs are fully included. There is also the imminent publication of her authorised biography by Charles Moore that promises fresh revelations on well-trodden ground.

But the essential truth is that today's generation of politicians cannot escape the debate about Lady Thatcher's legacy. It is still too soon.

When David Cameron asserts that "we are all Thatcherites now", people will debate his meaning. Is he talking about some new consensus in which the lessons of her premiership should be applied to today? Or is he trying to escape her clutches by sharing the burden of her inheritance, saying she has made her changes and it is time to move on?

Even the Bishop of London had a go at interpreting what she meant when she said "there is no such thing as society". And following Amanda Thatcher's poised bible reading, some are already fantasising about her continuing the political legacy of her grandmother with a lack of shame that might even make a dynastic Gandhi blush.

Conservative MPs will continue, at least for now, to measure their leaders against her benchmark. Voters who supported her will continue to wonder what she would have done to fix today's economic and social ills. And those who voted against her will not forget the lost jobs and devastated communities that followed the decline of their industries during her watch. To cite the inimitable Lord Hennessy again, the legacy of Lady Thatcher will "cling to the velcro of our political life".

The point is not who is right or who is wrong. The point is that the debate about Margaret Thatcher's life and deeds is not over and a funeral and an interment will not bring it to an end. In death as in life the shadow she casts is long.

That is why he came to Suffolk today to set out his latest plans to dissuade all but what he called the "brightest and the best" migrants from coming here.

He and his fellow party leaders are now in a competition to see which of them can come up with the toughest policy on immigration.

The aim is to reassure voters and prevent too many of them backing UKIP.

The problem for Mr Cameron is that many of his proposals tackle only part of the problem.

The truth is that his room for manoeuvre is limited by EU freedom of movement rules.

There is also the risk that in this immigration arms race, the three largest parties cancel each out and the public end up more confused than reassured.

But while the chancellor has merely hired a Canadian financier to run the Bank of England, the leader of UKIP is seeking to emulate a political revolution that swept the country in the 1990s.

You may remember the Canadian Reform Party. They were the populist, right-of-centre, small state, low tax, anglophone party that came from nowhere in 1993 to win 52 seats in Canada's federal parliament.

Reform routed the Conservative Party - which was left with just two seats - and soon became the official opposition. For years the right in Canada were split and the Liberal Party flourished until eventually Reform and its successors merged with the Conservatives.

Last week the UKIP leader travelled to Ottawa to meet the founder of Reform, Preston Manning, to find out how he did it, how a small, insurgent, west coast party took on the political establishment in the east of Canada and won.

Mr Farage shared a platform with John Howard, the former Australian prime minister, before an audience of 1,000 people at a conference run by Mr Manning's political foundation.

This is what Mr Farage told me he had learned:

1. The by-election that Reform won in 1989 was crucial in convincing voters that a vote for them was not as wasted vote. Expect UKIP to throw everything at its next chance for a seat in Parliament.

2. Reform had, he says, a good slogan - "A common sense revolution" - that reflected Reform's anti-establishment, blue collar agenda. Expect a similar slogan from UKIP in this summer's local elections.

3. Reform had a foundation, an organisation that promoted its views and carried out research. "There is a big gap in UKIP's armoury and that is a foundation," Farage says. "Margaret Thatcher had the IEA. We need a UKIP-friendly think tank."

4. Reform's greatest influence came in changing the Conservative Party with which it ultimately merged, in what Mr Farage, as a former City man, describes as a "reverse takeover". No one can ever say that UKIP's leader lacks ambition; he is clearly aiming high and long. "Doing a deal with the Conservatives is not uppermost on our agenda," he says. "It is not something I would consider until after the next election." But the idea has clearly crossed his mind.

Key fact: Stephen Harper, the Conservative prime minister of Canada, was first elected to the Canadian parliament in 1993. As a young MP for the Reform party.

Now that really is food for thought...

The deal was agreed in the early hours in Ed Miliband's office at the House of Commons. The Labour leader was there alongside his deputy Harriet Harman. The Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg was present as were four members of the Hacked Off campaign group whose leading light, Hugh Grant, describes as "a few dandruffy professors...a slightly insane chess champion ex-Lib Dem MP and a couple of threadbare lawyers".

Representing the Conservatives was Oliver Letwin, the minister for policy, a man who once left parliamentary papers in a bin in St James's Park. The relevant minister, the Culture Secretary Maria Miller, was not present. The prime minister was "being kept informed", Number 10 tell us, and took his last call from Mr Letwin after 3am. No one from the press was present. There were bleary eyes all round.

Together this band of late night policymakers agreed a piece of law to establish and underpin future royal charters, a medieval form of documentation first used in 1066, most commonly to turn towns into cities.

The royal charter created in the wake of Leveson will create a so-called recognition body to oversee a new press regulator. This royal charter will only be changed with a two thirds majority of MPs and peers. The group in Mr Miliband's office agreed that this new law should come in the form of an amendment to the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Bill, a piece of legislation that will set up a green investment bank and change competition laws, a bill that is currently ploughing its way through the House of Lords, a bill that has sweet nothing to do with press regulation.

Our nocturnal policymakers also agreed a second deal. This would ensure that newspapers who refuse to join the new regulatory regime will be liable - potentially - for exemplary damages if a claim is upheld against them.

This, however, will come in the form of a series of amendments to the Crime and Courts Bill, a piece of legislation that will set up a new national crime agency, reform tribunals and establish a new drug driving law. It too has nothing to do with press regulation. This bill just happens to be in the House of Commons right now so that bit will be considered first by MPs, not peers who will look at the royal charter first.

David Cameron, who, as we have established, was not in Mr Miliband's room in the middle of the night, wants however to have his say. So before any amendments go before MPs, the prime minister - with less than three hours sleep under his belt - will stand up in the House of Commons and ask the Speaker's permission (yes, that is right, the Speaker's permission) to hold a debate on the issue, using a dusty paragraph from the Standing Orders of the House of Commons known as SO24 to break into the usual flow of parliamentary business. MPs will debate the broad principles but not the detail, and - heaven forbid - they certainly won't vote on it.

All this, note, to determine nothing less important than the balance between ensuring redress for victims of press intrusion and the freedom of the press, a judgement of such sensitivity that it would stretch Solomon, let alone our band of sleepy policymakers and campaigners.

So there was no white paper. No pre-legislative scrutiny. Just rushed, late night law driven as much by politics as by principle. And nota bene, all this just to regulate the press, not necessarily every darkened recess of the news providing internet. The royal charter says it covers websites that provide news-related material, but there is some confusion as to what that really means. As a distinguished lobby colleague noted, it is like regulating the buggy whip just as the internal combustion engine is coming in.

Thus is law made. Perhaps we should inspect the sausage for horsemeat?

So Phil says, why not cut welfare instead?

Theresa the home secretary doesn't want her budgets cut either. She's done enough already, she says, to reduce police pensions. Why not cut welfare, she asks, almost as if she and Phil had been comparing notes.

You might imagine at this stage that Iain the welfare secretary is feeling pretty hard-pressed. But he actually agrees with his colleagues! Iain's already cutting £3.5bn from welfare but he thinks he could probably find another £6bn from the benefits bill.

However, Nick the deputy PM says no, the money's got to be found elsewhere. The hard-up are being squeezed enough already, he thinks.

His mate Vince the business secretary says why not raise taxes instead - a mansion tax comes to mind - or scrap Trident or perhaps even dip into the budgets that give pensioners free bus passes, TV licences and help with their fuel bills?

But Dave the boss says no, pensioner benefits can't be cut. He's made a promise to protect them and that is one commitment he is going to stick to.

Iain the welfare secretary is not so sure and wonders why rich pensioners should keep their support when he is squeezing so many other claimants. But Dave the boss is standing firm.

Meanwhile, a covey of Conservatives mutter to the media that the government should stop protecting international development aid. But Dave the boss is sticking to his guns on that too.

And other Tories whisper that perhaps Mike the education secretary might have to start dipping into his protected schools' budgets.

No he won't, say Mike's allies, otherwise there will be no more free schools. They need premises and premises cost money. So don't touch: free schools and academies are a legacy issue.

And don't forget, Nick the deputy PM doesn't want to upset the teachers having lost students over tuition fees and health workers over NHS reforms. Lib Dems cannot be careless with voters these days. So no cuts to schools.

Welcome to the world of George Osborne, a man with perhaps more advice than he needs. The chancellor is trying to agree how much money the government will have to spend in the first year of the next parliament.

So he's carrying out a comprehensive spending review for the financial year beginning in April 2015. And as part of that review, he's looking for another £10 billion of cuts and all the rest of the cabinet are fighting like dogs to say: "Not me. Cut the other guy."

A few conclusions:

They have been dubbed the national union of ministers - the NUM - and are flexing muscles that have not been stretched for a while. This, in itself, is not particularly striking. But what is interesting is the question of why.

Some say it reflects Downing Street's relative weakness; others say it shows ministers are positioning ahead of a post 2015 leadership contest. The Treasury says this is just what happens at every spending review. Maybe, but ministerial tail feathers are on show.

On one level, ministers are just defending their departments' budgets, regardless of their political colour. In other words, this is as much a blue-on-blue discussion as it is orange-on-blue. But there is a coalition dynamic at work. The Lib Dems are looking for ways of differentiating themselves from the Conservatives. And a good old battle over welfare cuts is as good a way as any.

Yes, the so-called "spending envelope" - the total pot of spending for 2015/16 - will be announced in the Budget in a few weeks' time. But the Treasury has not yet even begun holding formal meetings with ministers and officials to discuss the spending review. The proper negotiations are some months off. And there will be no deal agreed until just before the summer break. This ain't over till it's over.

This is a government that exists to cut the deficit. On that one aim hangs its economic and political credibility. The chancellor cannot open his mouth without telling us that the deficit has been cut by a quarter.

Now we have a string of cabinet ministers - who are supposed to be fiscal conservatives - parading their bleeding stumps for all the world to see. In other words, this government could get a reputation for being full of ministers who want to dodge budget cuts rather than crack down on the deficit.

The by-election will above all be a test of the respective party machines. When do the parties sense that voters have reached saturation point and stop bombarding them with calls, visits and leaflets? How good is their data about electors' likes and loves and voting intentions? How well do they organise and get their supporters out on the day?

The Lib Dems are totally bedded in. One Tory MP who knows the patch very well told me that the Lib Dems not only hold all the council seats in the constituency, they also most of the parish councils. Chris Rennard - to pluck a name from nowhere - whipped the party into shape for the 1994 by-election and council elections and they have dug in hard ever since.

The Conservatives will take the flak for being in government. Many MPs say voters in Eastleigh do not seem to view the Lib Dems as a party of government. So, for example, they say middle class concerns about the loss of the AAA credit rating are being directed at the Conservatives and not their coalition partners.

Conservative MPs give a mixed impression of their party's organisation on the ground. Some MPs and ministers I have spoken to say their party machine is better than is usual in by-elections. They talk of turning up and being given their marching orders quickly instead of being waiting around until someone can find them a few streets to knock up. But other Tory MPs talk of poor canvas returns and of a confused chain of command. Who is in charge, they ask? Is it Stephen Gilbert, the prime minister's political secretary, or is it Darren Mott, the Tories' deputy director for elections? They also point to an aged local party that is in dire need of renewal. For example, the Tory group leader on Eastleigh borough council, Godfrey Olson, is well into his 80s and has held the same seat since 1955.

Whatever the result, MPs belonging to the losing party will infer too much from the defeat. This is particularly true of Conservative MPs. They say that if the party loses, David Cameron will come under instant pressure to move to the right/legislate for an EU referendum/slash taxes/ditch George Osborne and so on. If UKIP does well and Tories can claim that the loss of votes to UKIP cost the Conservatives the seat, this pressure will be even greater.

In other words, what matters on Friday is how the parties react to the result. This by-election will not predict the result of the next general election; it will not tell us that the Lib Dems will hold or lose every marginal seat against the Tories; it will not tell us how Labour will do elsewhere in the south of England. But the reaction on Friday will provide a snapshot of the morale of the losing party. Do they panic? Whose head do they demand? What policy response do they call for? And the resulting debate will have a further impact on that morale.

Both Lib Dem and Tory MPs claim the Labour vote is being squeezed. Several Lib Dems I spoke to said they were surprised by how poorly the Labour vote seemed to be holding up. They claimed they were picking up much of it. That remains to be seen. Either way, Labour explicitly made this election a test of their one nation appeal and they will be probably be judged by it.

All sides expect UKIP to do better than initially thought. They say the anti-politics mood is thriving in Eastleigh where many voters appear hostile to politicians, they are worried about immigration, they feel ignored and taken for granted by Westminster, and, frankly, they are fed up with people stuffing paper through their letter boxes and asking the same question over and over again. All this is grist to UKIP's mill.

Night after night we would stand in the press gallery of the House of Commons at 10pm and watch as this MP and his small band of brothers tested John Major's dwindling majority to destruction as they opposed the Maastricht and other treaties.

In later years he carved a more lonely furrow, banging on about Europe when the rest of Parliament had moved on. As a member and then chairman of various committees, he has spent years scrutinising the detail of legislation pouring in from Brussels while other MPs lost interest.

To his opponents, he is a Eurosceptic bore who would blame the European Union for the weather if he could. To his friends, he is an heroic obsessive, the Eurosceptic conscience of the Conservatives who holds each and every Tory leader to account.

And yet so Eurosceptic has the Conservative party become that Bill Cash is now considered to be in the party's mainstream. And that is not my judgement but David Cameron's.

In a programme about the rise of Euroscepticism on BBC Radio 4 on Monday at 20:00 GMT, Mr Cash tells me of a recent encounter with the prime minister where they were discussing his promise of a referendum on Britain's membership of the Europe Union.

He says: "David Cameron actually said to me in a meeting I had with him a few weeks ago, 'Bill, you're mainstream'."

For me, that comment illustrates better than any other the change that has come upon the Conservative Party over the last decade in which Euroscepticism has grown from a minority sport to a wider political force.

Where once there was a battle between Tory Eurosceptics and pro Europeans, most Conservative MPs would now say they were Eurosceptic in some shape or form. Where once Tory associations pushed their MPs to be more hostile to Europe, many have now had the chance to choose more Eurosceptic candidates. And where once Conservative Eurosceptics defected to UKIP, there is now traffic the other way as the high profile defection of one of UKIP's MEPs, Marta Andreasen, proved last week.

But it is not just the Conservative Party that has changed. The rest of the body politic has become more accustomed to Euroscepticism.

Think of it - a serving British prime minister has promised an in out referendum on Britain's membership of the EU, opening the door to Britain taking powers back from Brussels or leaving the European Union altogether. And yet the sky did not fall in, the pound remained steady and the continental upper lip stayed admirably stiff. The same promise 10 years ago would have provoked uproar in the House of Commons, spooked the financial markets and dismayed the rest of Europe.

The question is why? Tonight in This Eurosceptic Isle, I try to draw together a few answers.

In no particular order, these are just some of the themes that emerge: the selection of more Eurosceptic Tory MPs; the growth of UKIP as the anti-politics vote leaves a pro-European party (the Lib Dems) and joins one that opposes the EU; the silence of pro-Europeans who have let their side of the argument fall by default; the arrival of immigrants in the UK from the Eastern European reaches of the EU; the growing awareness of EU in everyday life; the impact of the eurozone crisis that has tarnished the EU brand and put wind in the Eurosceptic sails; and the changing international geopolitics that says we don't just have to look to Europe for markets, ideas and culture.

All that analysis with interviews from the likes of London Mayor Boris Johnson, George Eustice MP, the anti-euro campaigner Lord Leach, Charles Grant of the pro-European Centre for European Reform thinktank, the former Labour leader Lord Kinnock, and the former Labour cabinet minister, Lord Mandelson.

Just to give you a taster, here is Lord Mandelson on the role of the media: "It is very striking that the combined effect of News International, Daily Mail newspapers, the Telegraph, but in the middle of that the figure of Rupert Murdoch more importantly than any other has driven the media to a more hostile position than it was when we went into the then European Community in the 1970s.

"There are now newspapers that are just propaganda rags, there is no balance, no even-handedness. It is just straight forward Europhobia. It is bound to have an effect."

This Eurosceptic Isle will be broadcast on BBC Radio 4 at 20:00 (GMT) on Monday, 25 February 2013. You can listen to it on iPlayer after broadcast

It was, we were told, the largest business delegation a British prime minister had ever taken abroad.

He promised to double trade with India by 2015.

More than two-and-a-half years on, Mr Cameron is back in Mumbai and, while the delegation of chief executives and vice chancellors is even bigger, the promises are the same.

Britain is, he says, on track to meet its target of doubling trade with India by 2015.

But as several businessmen on the plane told me, it was starting from a pretty low base. Belgium trades more with India than we do.

We trade more with North Rhine Westphalia than with India.

So when Mr Cameron talks of "untapped potential" and there being "much more to do", he is speaking with some degree of understatement.

Since 2010, firms like BP and Diageo have made some big investments. But that first prime ministerial trip failed to generate as many deals as had been expected.

Famously Delhi chose to buy more than a hundred French Rafale fighter jets - as seen in Mali in recent weeks - instead of the part-UK produced Eurofighter Typhoon.

And for several big firms, trade with India has been marred by billion-pound tax rows and unpaid fees.

In recent weeks, it also emerged that a multi-million pound deal to provide India with 12 AgustaWestland helicopters had been put on hold amid bribery allegations - claims the firm denies - putting jobs at risk in Yeovil.

So when David Cameron says he wants Britain and India to forge one of the great partnerships of the 21st Century, he knows he has some work to do.

This may be the largest prime ministerial delegation ever, but it arrives in Mumbai on bended knee.

Yes, the UK clearly has much to offer that India needs, in terms of expertise in infrastructure, engineering and universities.

And yes, at Unilever's Mumbai headquarters on Monday morning, Mr Cameron urged Delhi to open its markets up to greater foreign trade, particularly in financial services like banking and insurance.

But it is noticeable that his first substantive announcement is one designed to reassure - a promise that Indian businessmen will get a new, fast-track visa service so they can get on a plane fast to the UK.

Mr Cameron also clarified the mixed messages over immigration by telling Unilever workers there would be no limit to the number of Indian students who could come to the UK.

He also promised up to £1m to help fund a feasibility study into using British expertise to develop a so-called "business corridor" between Mumbai and Bangalore.

On the Eurofighter deal, despite the somewhat optimistic briefing, the prime minister will simply remind his Indian counterpart that the European offer stands if the French bid were to fall through.

But he will not push for fear of insulting his hosts.

What is different is the change in strategy.

Instead of just focusing on big name British companies to sign big ticket deals, Mr Cameron has brought with him 30-odd small- and medium-sized firms in the hope that they can inculcate a new generation of trade and entrepreneurial links with India.

And let us not forget how important this all is for Mr Cameron.

For the economy to recover, for some growth to re-emerge, he needs trade missions like this to succeed.

So this probably won't be his last trip to India.

Yes, he will say in a speech in London, it is a gamble that could mean Britain leaves the EU.

But it is a gamble that Mr Cameron can't avoid and could be cathartic if Britain votes Yes and allows Parliament to focus on other issues.

He will say the prime minister should ignore MPs with Tory heads and UKIP hearts looking to leave the EU.

Instead he should appoint a Cabinet minister as his personal emissary and start looking for allies now who share his ideas for EU reform.

And he will tell Tory MPs to stop bombarding Mr Cameron with demands, because it will look as if he is negotiating under duress for party, and not national, reasons.

As someone whose negotiations kept Britain out of the euro, Sir John's advice will carry some weight.

The Liberal Democrats say he intends to voluntarily remove himself from the Privy Council - which gives him the title "Right Honourable".

The Liberal Democrats say he intends to voluntarily remove himself from the Privy Council - which gives him the title "Right Honourable".

One year ago he stood outside his flat and declared: "I am innocent of these charges."

Today he admitted he was not.

It is the kind of fall from grace that seems only possible at Westminster. Politicians have no monopoly on deceit. And yet often their lie is larger and lasts for longer.

It is as if some politicians seem so full of hubris they cannot resist flying so close to the sun and then seem surprised when, like Icarus, they fall to the ground.

Huhne's name will now be added to that list of John Profumo, Jonathan Aitken and Jeffrey Archer, politicians all brought down by their ability to lie to Parliament or the courts.

We still remember Jonathan Aitken's promise to use the simple sword of truth and trusty shield of British fair play before he was jailed for perjury.

Some Lib Dems say Huhne should not be written off. They talk of comebacks.

Maybe. But one thing is certain: trust in British public life took a hit today.

Voters often say politicians lie. Today they were right.

He will almost certainly face some kind of jail sentence. He has announced he will resign from parliament.

A by-election in his Eastleigh constituency in Hampshire will plunge the coalition parties into their first divisive contest in a very marginal seat.

Mr Huhne's majority there is just 3,864. Eastleigh is on the Conservatives' target list for the general election and David Cameron could use this as an opportunity to silence the doubters in his own party.

There would be nothing like a victory over the Lib Dems to answer the critics on his own backbenches. After the Lib Dems' refusal to back boundary changes that would have helped the Tories, their blood is up for revenge.

But if the UKIP leader, Nigel Farage, chose to stand in Eastleigh, he might divide the conservative-minded vote and allow the Lib Dems to hold onto the seat. Mr Farage did stand for the Eastleigh by-election in 1994 so he knows the turf. Today he said he'd think about it.

As for the Lib Dems, this is a huge blow. They have lost one of their big beasts who took the fight to the Tories.

Let me try to take you through just what the government may, or may not, be planning for the nation's defence budget.

"To the people we serve it is patently obvious that individuals' votes should carry the same weight, and if that means reforming the rules for drawing boundaries, that is what we must do....Our priority must be to ensure that a person's vote is of equal worth, wherever they live in the UK. If the current rules distort that, they surely need to change."

By James Landale (with apologies to Rudyard Kipling)