You have to hand it to David Cameron - he is playing UK domestic politics perfectly at the moment.

While the political and economic chatterati have filled the press with doom laden treaties about Britain being isolated from Europe following the late night veto in Brussels last week, Cameron and master tactician George Osborne know their approach plays well with middle Britain. They are clawing back the gap with Labour in the opinion polls.

And middle Britons most certainly do help politicians win general elections.

This is all part of a strategy for 2015. In the same vein the Autumn Statement was about firing up the Tory electoral base as the middle classes continues to be squeezed .

While the idea of a 2015 general election fought about Europe will fill Number 10 with horror - the scars of the Save the Pound campaign fought by William Hague in 2001 are still raw for many - it would help detract from the likely hard grind of economics which Britons will continue to face.

Of course a referendum on Europe may come before that. The 81 Tory MPs who voted for one last month may force the government's hand yet further. The headlines say that the prime minister has been boxed in by them.

I'm not so sure.

In a Brussels conference room around 2am last Friday morning David Cameron placed his demands on the table. Sleep deprived European leaders were never likely to sign up to the UK's attempts to row back financial sector legislation. This was a political fix.

The UK's rubicon they would not cross. And Cameron knew it. Time to invoke the UK power of veto.

So we now have headlines which say its 26 versus 1. And right now, that's true. I attended a conference in the City of London yesterday and UK finance is very nervous about the ability of the sector to influence EU legislation in the immediate future. I share that concern.

But the biggest issue - which was not on the table in Brussels last week - is the sustainability of the euro itself. Fiscal union and budgetary control will be years in the making. And David Cameron knows that.

A politician needs voters to elect him - not business - and most voters are not in love with Europe. Cameron may have calculated the euro cannot be salvaged and - in time - he will be seen to have forced Europe to change course.

The prime minister is playing the long game. The very long game!

Follow Iain Anderson on Twitter: www.twitter.com/IW_Anderson