The BBC had former Foreign Office mandarin Sir Simon Fraser on Radio 4’s Westminster Hour last night: his comment that Brexit negotiations have ‘not begun well’ is doing the rounds in the remainstream media this morning. While the programme was straight about Fraser’s background, the BBC News website’s front page write-up bills him as “a former head of the diplomatic service… who now advises businesses on Brexit”. This description is being widely lifted and copied by newspapers and the wires. No mention of the fact that Fraser openly campaigned for remain…
Fraser is such an arch-Europhile that it is laughable not to contextualise his views. He worked for Peter Mandleson as a Brussels trade Eurocrat, was seconded to the European Commission and was head of the FCO’s Europe unit. A week before the referendum vote he wrote a remain-backing piece for the Telegraph headlined: “Leaving the EU means retreating from the real world into a self-absorbed fantasy”. The BBC website, which enjoys huge news traffic, keeps doing this…
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