Never-ending stories

I spent a bit of time last week on the set of the new Brexit film, which James Graham has written for Channel 4. My book on the referendum has been plundered by the new production, so it was fascinating seeing real events given life again, in several pitch-perfect performances.

The subject of conversation on set was the public slating of a leaked (early) copy of the script earlier that week.

Most agitated of the slaters was Carole Cadwalladr, the Observer reporter who has made her name by uncovering malfeasance around the use of data in politics and the financing of the referendum. ‘It’s profoundly wrong on every level,’ she moaned. ‘It’s wilfully misleading the public.’ Cadwalladr has done some superb reporting but she has also got some things wrong and appears irritated that the smoking gun she seeks won’t be in the first film of those events.

Also agitated were her sometime targets, the self-styled Bad Boys of Brexit — Arron Banks and Nigel Farage — and their American alter ego Steve Bannon, who pronounced the drama ‘bullshit’.