Iain Dale is rather keen to make it clear why he sees nothing wrong with accepting paranoid Euroscepticism at face value. Here’s his piece on the wild rumours that the EU hopes to ban selling eggs by the dozen.

I was looking at some of the comments in response to his post, and I don’t think they’re being fair to Iain. Just because he could have looked at a packet of eggs in his fridge and found the information in question is already on the packaging hardly means we should expect such extensive research from him before posting.

He wrote: “It’s written by the editor of The Grocer. Think on that.”

Isn’t it kind of cute the way he wants to retain the innocence of a teenager believing everything his Dad tells him about his business? The idea that a trade representative could be seen as just as biased as a partisan blogger never occurs to him. He could rename his blog “The Diary of Iain Dale, aged 13 and three quarters”.

“E bloody U” this. “Sunny effing Hundal” that. The breakfast table dialogue would write itself.

More seriously, the proposed legislation leaves room for exceptions, and has references to using nominal weights and selling by number. (I’m assuming I found the right document at http://www.reading.ac.uk/foodlaw/pdf/com2008_0040-labelling-proposal.pdf – not a single article I read provided any kind of reference to the legislation in question). In other words, the framework is in place for a sensible approach to selling eggs and loaves.

Anyone industry leader with a bit of self-confidence would just say, “look, we’re basically covered and several MEPs are making sure that the i’s are dotted and t’s crossed before the legislation passes. So let’s set the hysteria aside and get on with some real work, shall we?” In other words, sounding like a confident captain of industry instead of a paranoid whiner would be good. I would be amazed to find out their existing trade groups and lobbyists consider all of this as anything other than a routine bread-and-butter part of their work.

The point however is not about the food regulations, but the nature of the UK’s relationship with Europe in this parliament.

By nature I’m a Europhile, however the closed nature of the bureaucracy is a problem for me. The EU institutions need more scrutiny. The coalition of parties both for and against Europe, led by the more sceptical of the two, could actually make for an effective relationship with the continent. Tighter integration isn’t really on the cards in the economic context of this parliament anyway. So multi-lingual Nick Clegg allows a friendly British face while economic realities provide the perfect cover for William Hague to demand more responsive institutions. A simplistic and optimistic analysis, yes, but I suspect there’s a nugget or two of truth there. The EU needs to spend some time feeling accountable to the people of its member nations. From the UK’s perspective, I wonder if either Tory or Lib Dems alone would have struck the required tone of willing but concerned member state.

What the Eurosceptics offer is not scrutiny but panic. I suspect the eagerness with which some Tories pick up scare stories like this one could well isolate themselves on the fringes of the coalition. The political reality is that Cameron doesn’t need them, and extreme parochialism at a time when people want politicians just to get on with things could mean he doesn’t want to be associated with them either.