I am still interested mostly in the newspapers at the time of the referendum. There is interest now in social media and links to Trump etc. but in 2016 the newspapers still had clout. Hard to tell how much, but a lot of influence on the debate.
So I am going to look at the background to the proposed May / Corbyn TV debate on current Commons vote. Follow on Twitter and look for clues on what is going on. Could be very similar to what happened during referendum.
Big difference is that Corbyn is more in control of Labour Party press and PR. In 2016 there were organisations set up by Mandelson and Alan Johnson. Speculation has it some opponents inside Labour wanted to oppose him following an election defeat. The shadow cabinet resignations came soon after the referendum result. One campaign had a press release including an attack on Corbyn as part of their conclusion at the referendum result.
Corbyn did not share a platform with Conservatives and did not follow the same arguments. He avoided "catastrophist" claims about the economy.Concentrated on employment and consumer rights, the environment, positive aspects of EU.
For ref, this from Sky
Unfortunately the clips from Last Led on Channel 4 now very limited. Edits claim to show 7/10 score for EU as not positive enough. The complete clip was uploaded to his own YouTube channel, then taken down at Channel 4 request. It would be interesting to know how these decisions happened. Possibly thought to be helping someone inside Labour? Hard to tell. When the polls were tricky and media space was cleared for Labour it was taken by Gordon Brown and Lord Darling, sharing a platform with Osborne and sticking to claims about crashing the economy and a difficult budget. Not much reporting on Corbyn.
So how will decisions in TV be made over the next week or so? According to Buzzfeed there may have been discussions between BBC and May about a format that assumed an audience 50:50 in support of May to start with, limited time for Corbyn and May. So the ITV option makes sense for Labour.
Between the referendum and the second Labour leadership election there were heckles on Corbyn reported on BBC. But on Twitter there are stories that one was associated with Portland and the other with Lib Dems. Again this might have been sen as helpful for some sort of Labour or central view. Hard to tell. But maybe someone can remember and info will turn up as part of the chat this week.
So far the BBC has not reported on a story that May blocked an inquiry into Banks when Home Secretary before the referendum. Reported by Daily Mail and Channel 4 and mentioned in Commons by Ben Bradshaw MP. This should be part of a Brexit discussion as connects to Trump investigations and Russian cyber actions. Carole Cadwalladr is often queried on Twitter, in ways supported by some comments on BBC such as paper reviews and guests such as Banks. Another reason to avoid BBC if they continue to block the story. If they know it is wrong they could say so.
I am sometimes uncertain what the priority is for people supporting a second referendum. Corbyn is clear enough that this is a possibility though he prefers a general election. Is the aim to persuade him or to show he is just wrong and should be replaced? Surely things have changed? He is the Leader and you might think he would get media support. But Observer newspaper for example seems to ignore this. Interesting to see comments around the TV options.
Probably continues as tweets - @will789gb - other topics also.
Not much fiction yet, maybe later.
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