New flat-rate state pension announced: politics live blog If you are a hermit who has been living in a remote shack, you might be unaware of the fact that David Cameron is going to commit the Conservative party at the 2015 general election to calling for a major renegotiation of Britain's relationship after which he would put the results to the electorate in a referendum. Admittedly, Cameron has not formally announced the referendum policy. But he has been so explicit about his intentions that, when he finally puts it on the record, it won't come as any surprise. And that's why today's interviews were something of a non-event. Cameron did not really go much beyond what we already knew. I heard Cameron on the Today programme. He also gave an interview to ITV's Daybreak which I missed, although I've seen the quotes. There were plenty of lines worth recording - see below - but nothing that substantially advances our knowledge of Cameron's European policy. You can't get politicians to answer questions if they refuse point-blank. But there were some topics that could have been raised and that weren't on Today or (from what I can tell) on ITV's Daybreak. For example: Do you envisage delaying the referendum until 2018? According to James Forsyth in this week's Spectator, this is the plan. Would Conservative ministers and MPs have to campaign for Britain to stay in under the revised terms of membership? Or would they be free to campaign for an exit? What will you do if Germany and other EU countries decide against a treaty renegotiation? Are you willing to follow Nigel Farage's advice and trigger a renegotiation by invoking Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty? Would you definitely hold just one referendum, or would you consider a so-called "mandate referendum" before the renegotiation started? Will the government recommend staying in the EU on the revised terms whatever the outcome of the renegotiation? Or are there any circumstances in which a Conservative government could stay neutral, or recommend withdrawal? If there is going to be a referendum, can you confirm that you will unable to give business a cast-iron guarantee that Britain will still be in the EU in 2020? How substantial would a renegotiation have to be? Would you just settle for abolition of the working time directive? Do you accept the Specator report that nine cabinet ministers would want to leave if you just obtain a minimum renegotiation? Those are the questions that weren't answered. Here is what we did find out. I've taken some of the quotes from PoliticsHome and from the Press Association. Cameron rejected claims that his decision to call for a debate on Britain's relationship with the EU was a threat to the economy. Speaking on the Today programme, he said that the debate about the future of the EU was happening already. Those that say "this is very dangerous, you're putting at risk the relationship with Europe, you're putting at risk our position with regard to business," I don't agree with that because the fact is this debate is happening anyway. So we have a choice as politicians: do you get out there, lead that debate, make the changes that would be right for Britain - and I would argue right for Europe - and then give people a choice about that? Or do you kind of stick your head in the sand and just hope the debate is going to go away? He said he was "confident" that he could negotiate a new relationship with the EU. He played down suggestions that he thought leaving the EU would be "mad," although he did not actually deny using the phrase in private. See 8.05am. This is what you said when asked about yesterday's Mail on Sunday reports. Don't believe everything you read in the newspapers. I don't think it's in our interests to leave the European Union. I choose my words carefully. He said he accepted that Britain could survive outside the EU. Look, if you're saying to me would Britain sort of collapse if we left the European Union? No, of course not. You could choose a different path. The question is what is in our national interest: and I've always been very clear it's in our national interest as a trading nation to be in the single market, but not like Norway just accept all the rules of the single market, pay for the privilege of being part of it, and, as it were, be governed by fax from Brussels. He said that his long-awaited speech on Europe was "finished and ready to go." He said the Dutch and the Germans supported the idea of EU powers being repatriated to nation states. He rejected claims he was announcing his position in response to competition from Ukip. He said concern about Europe was "actually very mainstream across British people as a whole" in his interview on ITV. He said that holding a referendum on EU membership now would be "a false choice." He said that he was in favour of holding televised leaders's debate before the election campaign as well as during it. He told John Humphrys he was in favour of debates and, when Humphrys pressed him on whether he was in favour of them during the campaign (because there has been speculation about Number 10 trying to hold them before the campaign starts) he replied: Because we now we have a fixed term parliament, I think we should have more public debate, using that fixed term parliament, rather than just cramming everything into the election campaign. When Humphrys asked if he was suggesting this as an alternative to campaign debates, Cameron replied: "I think probably both would be my view." Cameron also said the format should be changed because the 2010 debates were "a bit boring" Can we look at trying to make them more interesting? Funnily enough, we all wanted quite boring, stultifying rules because we wanted to get them off the ground. Now he have got them off the ground, I think we can improve on them. He said he backed Eric Pickles' decision not to release figures for the number of Romanians and Bulgarians expected to come to the UK when transitional controls are lifted. I completely support what Eric Pickles has said, which is don't make official predictions unless and until you have got real confidence in those figures. Cameron said he did not accept a newspaper report suggesting he had a bad relationship with the civil service. He said that Britain was more prepared for cold weather than in the past. This is what he told ITV. I think we've made some progress over recent years making sure there are better supplies of grit, making sure there's more co-ordination. It was not good, 2010 - I remember that winter very well and we've learnt lessons from that, things like making sure there's enough de-icer at our airports, making sure there's better supplies of grit, better co-ordination. He said that he did not listen to Nick Clegg's LBC phone-in last week. But it was "a good idea," he said. "I love doing phone-ins," he said. Cameron said that he would like a onesie. The big story to emerge from Clegg's LBC phone-in was the news that he owns a big green onesie. Asked about this, Cameron told ITV: "My children have onesies. I often say that I'm very jealous that they didn't get me one.