With the PM saying he refused to pay the £1.7 billion pound bill to the EU, today was always going to be interesting as Mr Cameron came to the Chamber to report back on his meeting of the European Council.
Before that, though, I was in the office at home early, finished off a number of letters to constituents, and then headed to London, arriving at the Commons at 1430. Mr Cameron spoke after education questions at 1530. The Speaker let this session run for nearly 90 minutes, which is a long time in parliamentary terms.
Of course, we were all waiting to hear about this huge bill and how we were going to avoid paying it, or so we hoped. The bill has come about because our economy has performed better than anyone else's in the EU and under the rules those who are better off contribute to those who are not. So, a sort of wealth tax is imposed on nations doing ok, and that's us.
Rightly, the PM began his statement by thanking all our forces for doing a superb job in Afghanistan over the years. Sadly, 453 British soldiers have lost their lives in that time and thousands more have been badly wounded. Some relatives of the dead are bitter that the whole effort seems a waste of lives for what has been achieved. It is not for me to judge that because time alone will prove whether this sacrifice has been in vain. If we have left some semblance of hope in this tribal country, that would be something. It's now up to the people of Afghanistan to look after themselves as the last of our troops withdraw.
So far as the EU bill is concerned, the PM told the House that the scale and timing of the demand was unacceptable. He accused this latest move of being nodded through by bureaucrats. The PM went on to say that Britain would NOT be paying £1.7 billion on 1 December. Naturally, this line provoked some on the Labour benches to ask when it was going to be paid. And I have to say the same thought entered my mind and that of my Bournemouth colleague Conor Burns, who was sitting beside me.
If we don't pay this bill, we will be fined huge sums of money which will then inevitably lead to the courts and more expense, or should I say taxpayers' money. Anyway, the PM told us he would check the statistics in "exhaustive detail" before a bean was paid.
Of course this whole debacle is meat to the Ukip bone and further undermines the British people's already cynical view of the EU. The PM did remind everyone that if we won the next election the people would be given a chance to vote on whether to stay in or leave the EU.
Many MPs then asked questions, including me. I implored the PM to adopt the common sense stance of returning to a trade agreement as was first intended. I believe EU federalism is nothing more than dressed-up socialism, where every country is expected to be the same and to answer to the centre.
The state will provide sort-of-thing leads to disaster, broken economies and civil unrest. An exhausted PM was eventually released from the Chamber at about 1650ish and then we came to the committee stage of the Recall of MPs Bill.
Today, Zac Goldsmith was pushing his amendments which, if passed, would have meant an MP could be subjected to the threat of recall by a small group of constituents signing a petition on the basis they disagreed on a particular political stance.
I spoke on Tuesday during Second Reading of the Government's bill and you can read my speech on the website, so I will not repeat myself here. I like and respect Mr Goldsmith but I think his amendments were pure tokenism and would have undermined our democratic system and placed unfair pressure on MPs and in particular Ministers.
I did not make another speech today but remained in the Chamber for about an hour to see if anything said might change my mind, but the reverse was true. I tried to intervene twice on Mr Goldsmith but I suspect that, knowing what I would say, he rejected my request.
There were some good speeches against the amendments and one or two not such good ones for them. Interestingly, what happened at the end of the debate only confirmed my fear of these amendments. Mr Goldsmith's amendments were easily defeated come the vote at 2200, but several colleagues said they voted FOR them to keep campaigners happy in their constituencies.
Imagine what would happen if those same MPs, and others, were subjected to the threat of recall if they stood firm on a controversial issue? They'd never stand up for what they believed in and the whole system would collapse.
One problem is that MPs are still so down at heel following the expenses' scandal that they are too easily tempted to look inwards and impose more nonsensical rules on themselves.
An interesting day.
Back home late and a small whisky!