Charles Moore Charles Moore

The Spectator’s Notes | 11 June 2005

Today's continental papers mirror the British press of 1975

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. The red Morning Star was for a ‘No’ vote and so, I think, was the Daily Express, but the only intellectually distinguished nay-sayer was this magazine. An entertaining programme by Michael Cockerell about the 1975 referendum reminded us of all of this last week (all of it, except — the programme was on the BBC — for the BBC’s even more propagandist role then than today). Times, Telegraph, Mail, Sun (Murdoch then as now) were all for ‘Yes’. Somehow, the wind was in the ‘Yes’ sails — money and glamour and youth; secret, large breakfasts arranged by Alistair McAlpine at the Dorchester where Douglas Hurd could plot with Roy Jenkins; brilliant columns by Bernard Levin laughing at the poor, dingy No-men. Even Margaret Thatcher wore a jersey bearing the flags of all the European nations with which we were voting to stay (though not the T-shirt, then considered quite daring, which said ‘Europe or bust’).

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