Reviewing The New European

After the ill fated launch of The New Day I think most people, me included, thought we'd seen the last ever launch of a print newspaper but then, out of the blue, came The New European.

The 'pop-up paper for the 48%' from Archant launched last week and I couldn't resist having a nosey at what they'd come up with.

I ordered a copy of issue one (they're being mostly stocked in pro-Remain areas and this neck of the woods is 'Brexit central' so I doubt we'll see one in the shops) but didn't know quite what to expect. Had they had long enough to get it all together? Was £2 a bit steep? Would it all bit of a moan-fest?

Luckily my fears weren't realised and what popped through the letterbox was actually a cracking paper. There's a lot in it, a good range of columnists and a surprising variety of content. Matt Kelly and co deserve an awful lot of praise for doing all of this in such a short space of time.

The comparison with the New Day couldn't be starker. I felt that was always struggling to accept who it was aiming at and what it was trying to do. This has a clear identity and delivers a fresh batch of content that should go down well with its audience.

I liked the broadsheet format, the in depth articles and the fact it wasn't trying to be something it was not. There's little attempt to recap or tell the news and it quickly moves into the meat of the paper by diving into the 'expertise' section. You get the impression that Kelly and the team know that its audience is fairly well versed in the ins and outs of referendum result - and instead focuses on encouraging them to consider why the result happened and how 'the 48 %' feel now.

The design feels about right and even though I didn't think the page one cartoon was great I applaud the bold attempt to do something different with the splash. It certainly feels a European thing to do.

It feels like there's definitely enough life in this topic for the initial four-title run (and perhaps more besides?), with an attempt to look at some of the regional complexity that the national press barely understands and offer a view from commentators in Europe too. Indeed, the double page 'view from Germany' was certainly a highlight of the first edition for me, with Bild editor Tanit Koch offering a fascinating insight into her paper's coverage.

I also quite like the paper's cheeky side. Whether it's proudly railing against Michael Gove's anti-expert comment or highlighting some of the negative pre-launch tweets under the header 'do leave' on page two, these touches hinted at a paper with a playful confidence and a clear voice. It also benefits from signing up exclusively non-politicians to help it carve out a different sort of analysis to that you'll see elsewhere.

For me, the referendum debate has thrown up an interesting side story about the way we consume news - something also covered at length in Katharine Viner's superb Guardian Long Read this week. The New European touches on this with its Reality Bytes page, looking at the way in which Twitter and Facebook give us a blinkered view of the news and opinions of others outside of our circle of friends.

If The New European is anything is anything to go by then maybe there really is life in print yet. This life, as with magazines, comes in 'niche' publications that reach out to a well-defined audience and do it well. It's what makes Private Eye a success - alongside the likes of the Spectator, New Statesman and Economist - and this paper delivers on this score too.

How much life there is beyond the initial four-week run probably depends on what happens next with Brexit as well as, of course, sales.

If issue one is anything to go by, this will have at least been a more-than-worthy experiment - allowing people to find a fresh voice at a time of great confusion. History, as they say, is normally only written by the victors. This fights against that tradition.  It'll be interesting to see if the sales go well and what, if anything, happens after issue four. I'll certainly be back for the next three.

Promises, promises: 11 failed pledges from both sides of the EU referendum campaign

What's a promise worth in politics these days? After writing my last post I started to think about all of the promises that had been reneged on during the course of the EU Referendum saga.

I came up with the following:

• David Cameron told us he'd stay on regardless of the result. He quit within hours
• The PM also said he would enact 'Article 50' but didn't
• George Osborne said he'd need to draw up a 'Brexit budget' if we voted to Leave. He hasn't
• Boris Johnson said the pound would be fine and the economy would be stable after the vote. It isn't
• The mop-haired ex Mayor then weighed up standing to deliver on the result he'd strived for and backed out
• Michael Gove repeatedly ruled himself out of standing to be Prime Minister. He then stood and stuck the knife into his old mate Boris
• Andrea Leadsom once warned Brexit would be a disaster. She now backs it
• Jeremy Corbyn promised to support the Remain campaign but has been accused of undermining its efforts and not-so-secretly wanting to be out
• We were promised £350 million more a week for the NHS. We won't get it
• The Leave campaign promised to control the levels of immigration. They probably can't
• Nigel Farage has stood down, saying his work is done. It isn't. (He also insulted the people we now need to win over to strike a new deal for Britain, nice work)

That's pretty damning I'd say. I don't want to just criticise politicians, but they should look at the list above and begin to understand why many people don't trust them.

The sad thing is I doubt I've even covered them all. Feel free to point out any I've missed below...

How do we know what the electorate actually wanted from EU Leave vote?

Photo: Unsplash

Life very rarely throws up questions that have a black and white ‘yes/no’ choice does it? I can’t quite help think that this hasn’t helped with the EU referendum. With a question of such complexity and magnitude boiled down to one simplistic question, chaos was probably always likely.

I last blogged on the eve of the ballot. A lot has happened since hasn’t it? Yet one thing is clear, no-one really knows what to do next.

Whether I like it or not (and I’m still convinced that it’s a terrible decision) the electorate chose to Leave. The trouble was, while there is a mandate to negotiate an exit, it’s not clear what else there is a mandate for. What did the people actually vote for?

The black and white nature of a yes/no referendum also allows people to make sweeping and inaccurate statements about both camps. Remainers aren’t all whiners just as much as Leavers aren’t all racist. Yet, because the cap fits for some in those respective sides, others are tarred with the brush.

Some Leavers want a strangely very similar relationship to the EU to that we have now. Others want a Norway style deal, some are keen on a more distant position and others want us to be as far away as possible. Some won’t countenance ‘free movement’ of people, others are happier to accept this. All of this variation is under the umbrella of the ‘no’ in the yes/no vote... and that’s not even considering the shades of grey within those arguing for yes.

So, what do we do? Blunder along into a position that is bound to be unsatisfactory? That’s the way it seems. Consider this: a negotiation that adopts a Norway-style relationship is likely to upset the 48% who voted to Remain AND all of the most vehemently anti-EU elements of the Leave voters. The mandate suddenly becomes a little flimsy.

People like Boris Johnson certainly don’t have the answer. Having been royally shafted by his fellow Leaver Michael Gove, Johnson ducked out of the race. Yet, let’s face it, he had no idea how to implement the result he’d helped to win anyway. He’s probably relieved to be able to snipe from the sidelines rather than having to do anything, passing the poisoned chalice to a colleague in the process.

Gove is a man who regularly repeated the assertion that he doesn’t think he is up to the job and proved too toxic to run the Department for Education. I still don’t think he really wants it. He’s probably achieved what he wanted by dashing Boris’ dreams. A playground-style rivalry played out at the highest level.

It’s certainly a precarious position. David Cameron – having let loose a yes/no question to this tricky topic – is the lamest of lame ducks. A decision on Heathrow and a debate on Trident have been parked until his successor is named. Nothing, it seems, can be achieved until the politicians sort out their squabbles. A final failure that will surely define Cameron’s premiership.

Then there’s George Osborne. The Chancellor had failed to wipe out the deficit in five years of ‘the coalition’ as promised and now, post Brexit, says it won’t happen by 2020 either. His sole purpose destined to be left unachieved. He now seems to think that by repeating the phrase ‘I want to offer reassurance’ that people will actually feel reassured. Why not try giving us some words and ideas that are actually reassuring George? Is it because you’re keeping your powder dry in the hope of clinging on to a job?

And what to make of the mess on the opposition benches? Right now, in the country’s hour of need, there is no opposition and no Government. Cheers guys.

I know some people feel Jeremy Corbyn has been hard done to in recent days but I can understand why his parliamentary colleagues have lost faith in him. His performance during the referendum debate was poor. We’re told he’s a man that sticks to his principles and convictions yet you get the impression he is a Eurosceptic and is happy to leave. So, why not say that? Irrespective of that, the man doesn’t command enough of a party to form an effective opposition any more and has to go. It might not be nice but that’s politics.

I can understand why some people have chosen to march, demonstrate and protest. It seems ridiculous that others now say they shouldn’t do so having argued that they are ‘pro democracy’ during the referendum. The trouble is that I doubt there’s a consensus solution among the marchers about what they think should happen next either.

We’re left awaiting the result of the Conservative Party leadership election to see how we’ll go forward. The final two candidates will, at least, offer differing visions of the future relationship with the EU but it feels a little unsatisfactory that 150,000 party members will get to choose that vision (having had their ‘final two’ whittled down for them). Some grim irony given that we apparently voted to end the rule of unelected and unaccountable figures.

Maybe we should’ve been given a better range of choices in the referendum? Maybe we should never have had one in the first place, leaving the politicians we choose to represent us to make the tough decisions on our behalf? Maybe we should be given a chance to say whether we agree with the final deal thrashed out with the EU? Maybe we should all pretend this never happened in a very British way and try to move on? Maybe Remainers should just step back and hope things aren’t that bad? Maybe Johnson and Farage should’ve had the decency to see through what they started?

So many maybes, so few answers. We’ve said ‘no’ to a question that really wasn’t a yes/no problem and all it has done is throw up other more complex questions. Questions of the nature that probably should’ve been thrashed out before the vote instead of tawdry nonsense, spun statistics and guff written on buses.