These might be mere irritations if the European Union itself was open to substantial reform. If it realised it had to slim down its structures, become less impenetrable to ordinary citizens and should focus on doing much less regulating. But the pantomime of David Cameron's so-called renegotiation shows beyond doubt that the EU is content with how it is presently constituted. When the supposed push for a new British relationship with the European Union boiled down to little more than how the UK could allocate a few million pounds of child benefit, it was obvious that an appetite for substantial change amongst most of our EU partners is simply absent.