While Brexit raged, I was being rushed into secret two-minute screenings – of Christmas adverts

Once we used a commercial break for a cuppa. Now a whole industry of intrigue has built around these festive offerings: they’re very much the main event

Around 8pm on Wednesday, a corner of the newsroom erupted with jeers and shouts. Theresa May walked out of 10 Downing Street to announce that she’d reached a Brexit deal. The newsdesk was on tenterhooks. What would this mean for the future of the country? Will the British people get a final say on the deal? How does this abate concerns over free movement, the single market and Northern Ireland’s border?

Across the other side of the newsroom, I sat tearing my hair out. I was compiling an urgent live blog, the sort that charts developments as they happen on the website. Had I formatted it correctly? Had I ensured the scheduled publication time wouldn’t break the embargo? The pressure of covering these huge events can be immense. We must strike the right chord for the dedicated Independent readership. Covering the John Lewis Christmas advert is a tricky thing.

Yes, while news writers, political correspondents and comment editors lapped up cabinet chaos, tweaked headlines and toed the line of opinion and straight reporting, I was ensuring our coverage of a department store’s festive campaign was plentiful and on-brand, sating the appetites of hungry tweeters.

It might sound superficial, but our readers don’t just want politics 24/7 – it’s up to us on the lifestyle desk to add to The Independent’s variety of content by keeping a laser focus on Christmas, food trends, the new exercise craze, thoughts and theories round sex and relationships, and where to travel at what time of year. Our coverage of the retail giant’s 2018 Christmas advert starring Elton John generated huge reader interest as soon as we started to publish our articles. Perhaps it was the much-needed injection of joy that we were all waiting for – everyone needs something to balance out the political drama of the Brexit negotiations.

It used to be that an advert break was the perfect time to get up and make a cuppa. Now we’re waiting with bated breath for the adverts themselves in the festive season – they’ve become the main event. Some of them are so poignant that we still remember them years later (Sainsbury’s 2014 portrayal of the Christmas Day truce in the trenches comes to mind). It’s become a cockfight to produce the most heart-wrenching short film, with each supermarket planning theirs months in advance and with seemingly exponentially skyrocketing budgets (£7m for John Lewis, for instance).

This year, I’ve attended clandestine meetings with retailers, woken up in the early hours to publish stories following strict embargoes and been rushed into special rooms solo for screenings of two-minute-long commercials.

And this week, while it seems that Christmas has become a colourful circus replete with animatronic teddy bears flying into Heathrow, politicised orangutans and promotion for an Elton John biopic, I’m just glad that the Lifestyle team can provide a little respite while the government goes to hell in a handcart.

Yours,

Harriet Hall

Lifestyle editor