Politics as painting-by-numbers

David Cameron, outlining his reasons for calling for a referendum on EU membership in the next parliament (an incredible constitutional demand in a genuine democracy), said that national support for the EU was "wafer-thin."  It puts me in the mind of Monty Python's Meaning of Life, when John Cleese's maitre d' serves Terry Jones' Mr Creosote a "waffer-thin mint."  After a few rejections, Mr Creosote gives in to the argument that it is just "one waffer-thin mint," eats it and explodes.  Cameron fits the maitre d' image but contrary to the film, he is trying to stop his Tory backbenches exploding with bile towards him.
Is it any wonder though that support is allegedly 'wafer-thin' when figures in politics from the left and the right attack the EU with vehemence and even figures who are friendly to the EU, such as Tony Blair, used to kick it if to do so served his domestic electoral interests.  Like a punchbag, the EU can be repeatedly bashed with little if any damage to the person doing the attacking.  Talk of red lines, defending the national interest and so on is a language of antagonism that colours people's judgement about.  Some of this is of course dictated by the need to avoid being savaged in the newspapers, many of whom invariably interview politicians hostile to the EU to serve their anti-continental European agenda when they publish how 'bad' the EU is.  The lower leagues of the tabloids portray the EU as a monstrous behemoth that is itching to crush British freedom, whereas the higher-brow anti-European press strive for more credibility in describing the EU as merely a vehicle for French and/or German interests.  The tabloids obsession with Germany and World War Two is amusing in that they often accuse the Germans of the same - this is to the extent that when perverting the course of justice, security guards for News International used a call-sign in a text message that referenced Where Eagles Dare, a film more than forty years old at the time.
When good news is announced for the EU, it comes out almost inadvertently.  This morning on the Today programme, Sir Andrew Green, head of the strident Migration Watch, had to admit that EU immigration actually benefits the UK more than it hurts it, though he added the caveat that this is largely the influence of the fifteen EU members that comprised the club in 1995.  But you won't hear that from most newspapers and almost no politicians.  To admit to being a Europhile in this country is almost like to saying one is a Christian - a deeply unfashionable status that many times has to have a few criticisms of failures thrown in to justify oneself in polite society e.g. the EU is a force for good in making us more cosmopolitan but they need to get their budget in order (recently failed its 19th consecutive annual audit).  People here don't express their support for the military but caution "the MoD needs to fill in that budgetary black hole [which costs Britain far more than the EU's budgetary lapses]."  If they feel minded to, they just express their support for the military.  The more Cameron talks about support for EU membership being wafer-thin (which incidentally, I do not think it is, rather there is a grudging reluctance that it is in our best interests to keep within the tariff barrier and have a say on how the rules are made), the thinner it will become.