So many of the main figures in the referendum debate are former journalists,imbued with the Euroscepticism of their preceding employersSo it is not just daggers at dawn for Boris and Dave. There are other careers, reputations and legacies up for grabs on 23 June – including a ripe collection of Fleet Street’s finest. stare along last week’s bloodstained frontline. Here’s the Sun, and Rupert and Rebekah’s big bazooka,hailing “Britain’s most common politician by a mile”, aka the “Blond Bombshell”. Here’s James Kirkup in the Telegraph, and likening Michael Gove to Tyrion Lannister in Game of Thrones – an “unloved genius” who could be “finally recognised and rewarded”. Here’s the inevitable Daily Mail laying into “a motley crew of slippery PR men,Cameron cronies and avaricious bankers, plus a smattering of chancers who feathered their nests by selling UK firms to foreigners” (ie the bosses of BT, and BP,Shell and other important advertisers). Here’s the Express comparing the failing EU to the “multi-nation USSR”. All together now, sing “One Million More Migrants are On Their Way”.
Does this sound well, or a trifle fevered? Of course. For the power of the press,genuine or alleged, is on the line too. Murdoch will want his standard tea and buns with whoever survives in Downing Street and Tony Gallagher, and his latest editor,is sweating in the bakehouse. Paul Dacre surely sees slaying the EU dragon as the culmination of a brilliant Mail career. The Barclay twins and Richard Desmond are poised near some Channel Islands Brexit. Who are they all up against? The Guardian, the FT, or the Economist (a very short Mail hit list). Victory should be assured. “At last,we have voices to speak for England.”Continue reading...
Source: theguardian.com