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@lionelbarber @FinancialTimes This is magisterial and must-read but, as one of @BorisJohnson’s successors as @telegraph Brussels corr from 2005-7, I fear Sir Max is being too easy on the role his paper played in establishing the idea that Europe has only foolish and bad ideas, imposed on a hapless Britain 1/
@lionelbarber @FinancialTimes @BorisJohnson @Telegraph I inherited Boris’s office, with its fine view over a Brussels park and lake, and his assistant who told adoring tales of her scallywag boss. I also inherited a beat predicated on the idea that stories about the EU did not have to be wholly true as long as they were funny 2/
@lionelbarber @FinancialTimes @BorisJohnson @Telegraph I wrote at the time that UK journalism felt like school bullying and the EU was the kid in the playground with glasses who had to be punched, because it never fought back and deserved it. I should say I had some fine Foreign desk editors, who let me knock down false stories 3/
@lionelbarber @FinancialTimes @BorisJohnson @Telegraph But it felt like swimming against a tide. Two small stories, then I’ll stop. I once asked for a briefing about a project to connect national databases of asylum applications. A patient EU Commission official explained how real-time maps could now be shared with govts. 4/
@lionelbarber @FinancialTimes @BorisJohnson @Telegraph I rang London and was told to speak to the home news desk. I explained the scheme to the editor on duty. He was sincerely baffled. “But that’s helpful to the UK,” he said. “Yes,” I said. “It sounds sensible,” he went on, audibly at a loss at what to do with the story. 5/
@lionelbarber @FinancialTimes @BorisJohnson @Telegraph It was buried. Last story. Shortly before my move to @TheEconomist in 2007 I was rung to be told that the @telegraph was closing its Brussels staff bureau and wanted me to move to Paris as Europe editor. I argued for keeping an EU staff job, though I already knew I was off 6/
@lionelbarber @FinancialTimes @BorisJohnson @Telegraph @TheEconomist I reminded my then boss that an op-ed colleague Simon Heffer had that week written a column comparing the EU threat to Nazi Germany. “Don’t you think our readers should have a corr here to explain what such an institution is actually doing?” I asked 7/
@lionelbarber @FinancialTimes @BorisJohnson @Telegraph @TheEconomist My then boss told me: “@Telegraph readers hate the EU so much they don’t want to read about it.” This was the logical end of years of unserious, unprincipled, lazy polemic. Europe’s wickedness was established as a feeling, a delicious channeling of contempt and rage. 8/
@lionelbarber @FinancialTimes @BorisJohnson @Telegraph @TheEconomist Facts didn’t matter because the EU didn’t sue and if Eurocrats complained that proved the UK press was doing something right. @BorisJohnson didn’t invent that journalism, but he & Sir Max put it on page 1, week after week, forcing others to compete, and changing UK debate END
@lionelbarber @FinancialTimes @BorisJohnson @Telegraph @TheEconomist PS I should say that the @Telegraph had and has many excellent reporters, including and especially one of the best on Brexit @pmdfoster
