Pravdagraph

In anticipation (if that's the right word) of David Cameron's long awaited, much delayed, speech on Friday attempting to outline the Tory party's position on our membership of the EU, the Daily Telegraph has been running a series recently of very ill disguised pro-EU articles. The prospect of a referendum has revealed its, and the rest of the media's, true EU colours.

Nearly all of the Pravdagraph's articles either falsely, dispute that the Norway option means we would have no say or that Cameron can really repatriate powers while remaining an EU member. Yet it must know this position to be untrue, not least because of the comments that appear underneath many of its articles but also by publishing letters like this - as its main one - that appeared today:

SIR – The problem facing David Cameron is that he cannot renegotiate the terms of our EU membership in any meaningful way from within the existing model (report, January 14). The aim of the EU is, and always has been, ever closer union, culminating in a single federal state. Brussels will not allow the repatriation of power back to member states.

Mr Cameron has also made it clear that he believes it is in the national interest to remain in the EU, and this position goes unchallenged by the Lib Dems or Labour...

Thus, despite Leverson's assertion that mainstream journalists have; "a powerful reputation for accuracy", the Telegraph still insists on maintaining a completely false position. Even in the face of a large proportion of its readers who can see its falsehoods for what it they are. It seems content to invite ridicule. And neither is it just the Pravdagraph, here's the Spectator, for example.

Newspapers, like politics still haven't come to terms that increasingly, we are becoming less tribal: membership of political parties is now a "minority pursuit", the classic Yes Prime Minister sketch on who reads the papers is increasingly more irrelevant as the newspaper industry suffers terminal decline. And it's not just because information is now largely free that is initialising decline but that the monopoly of information according to the social make-up of its readership no longer applies. In response akin to circling wagons Pravdagraph is retreating into an ever decreasing circle of relevance - using it as a comfort blanket. In short it's in denial.

So instead we turn to bloggers and the internet for the real details. Here we have a fantastic blog from Richard North, titled EU politics: decoupling from "little Europe". A long and detailed piece, well worth reading in full, that not only gives lie to the 'government by fax' argument but lays out the true origin of our laws that will never be found within the framework of "mainstream journalistic standards".