The three scenes from Ch4’s Brexit film that show why Remain lost

As soon as Channel 4 announced Benedict Cumberbatch had been cast as Dominic Cummings in its Brexit film, a hatchet job was expected. Some might still see it this way. I found it balanced, gripping, and at times funny, even moving. Plenty will be written about which parts were accurate and which not, but this was drama, not documentary. The story it tells is perhaps the most important story of our times: how politicians had become stuck in a late-90s time warp using a Clinton-era playbook, and thought Remain would easily win the referendum. But they lost because politics changes and the new energy was coming from forgotten voters who saw a chance to be counted. And Dominic Cummings, an outsider with contempt for the establishment, spotted this.

Cummings is shown as driven not by ideology, but research – much of which is talking to Wetherspoon’s punters. “We’re going to follow algorithmic statistical analysis, we don’t need to put up with any prima donna MPs,” he says.