Letter from the editor-at-large: There are still good days to bury bad news

Consumers might have access to more information than ever, but they still devote limited time to reading the news

Pro-EU campaigners rally after the referendum result polled 52 per cent in favour of leaving (Getty)

Can there ever be too much news? This week, it felt like there could. There are times as a journalist when England crashing out of the European championships with their worst performance in history would be the biggest story of the week. But over recent days the defeat to Iceland for Roy Hodgson’s men has been subsumed in a torrent of political revelation.

A lot of people got away with stuff this week, because had the news not been so dominated by what’s happening in Westminster, greater attention would have fallen on them. For instance, did you know that the Goldman Sachs bankers who advised Philip Green on the sale of BHS have appeared in front of a select committee, confessing the errors of their ways? Many people would have missed this; in a quiet week, we might have splashed it over the front page of our app edition.

There’s an interesting lesson in this. We’re told that social media and the internet have vastly – indeed, infinitely – expanded the bandwidth of news, so that the old idea of linear channels and bulletins and newspapers and daily editions are essentially redundant. Weeks like this prove that thesis is rubbish. Consumers might have access to more information than ever, but they still devote limited time to news, and therefore want it packaged optimally. In other words, to coin an old but unpopular adage, there are good days (and weeks) to bury bad news.

The Labour Party certainly tried their best. In our supplement to today’s app edition, free to subscribers, we look at the way forward for the Tories, Europe, business, the economy, our security, and Labour. Alas for Jeremy Corbyn’s party, the existential crisis they are embarked upon shows no sign of abating.

With its old working class base eroded or tending toward Ukip, and Scotland gone for a generation, the coalition that got Attlee, Wilson and Blair to majorities is bust. As the party modernised, its leadership moved left culturally and right economically, but its base moved right culturally and left economically. As Sean O’Grady argues, perhaps only a new party can give coherence to Britain’s centre-left.

On slightly more trivial matters, our long promised TV listings have materialised this week: I hope you enjoy them and find them useful, and that amid the crazy avalanche of events you enjoy this week’s edition.