It is proverbial that the British press is disgusting and contemptible, but would we ever have got ourselves into the extraordinary situation of our Continental counterparts? In France, no national newspaper, except for the Communist L’Humanité, called for a ‘No’ vote in the referendum on the European constitution. The nearest any major Dutch paper came was the Telegraaf (no relation), which asked its readers what they thought and featured their strong ‘No’ on its front page. All the others said ‘Yes’. We hear a great deal about political parties getting out of touch with voters, but doesn’t the same apply to newspapers and their readers? Is no penalty ever paid? In Britain, our newspapers reflect fairly accurately the division of the population on Europe — Sun, Telegraph, Times, Mail, Express, sceptic; Guardian, Financial Times, Independent and Mirror, Europhile. Yet the strict answer to my first question above is ‘Yes’. We did get ourselves into a situation of creepy press unanimity over Europe in our only referendum ever held on the subject, in 1975.
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