After a tip-off from News-watch's David Keighley, I've begun comparing Nick Robinson's Europe: Them or Us with the 1996 BBC series it drew upon for its treasure trove of archive material - The Poisoned Chalice.
I'm only five or so minutes into the 1996 series (with about 195 minutes to go), but I've already been brought up short....
Nick Robinson's programme itself must have brought many people up short with this early passage, suggesting that Winston Churchill was the father of a united Europe and that the Great British Bulldog became its father in the early days of World World Two:
Nick Robinson (presenter): This wonderful treasure trove of interviews with the key decision-makers filmed 20 years ago, many of whom of course are no longer with us, gives us a real insight into the decision that we now face.
There's one interview we haven't got, it's with the man who in many ways was the father of a united Europe. No, he wasn't a Frenchman, he wasn't a German, he wasn't a Belgian, he was, in fact, the British Bulldog himself, Winston Churchill.
In the desperate days of June 1940, Britain's new wartime leader's first instinct was to go for full political union, quite unthinkable today. Churchill's plan, in a last-ditch effort to stop France falling to the Nazis, was that Britain and France would become a single country, an indissoluble union with one war cabinet running defence and the economy on both sides of the Channel.
The British Cabinet backed it, but with one prophetic exception, they simply couldn't stomach the idea of a single currency. Days later France fell, and with it, at that stage, the idea of political union.
So, it was "Churchill's plan", according to Nick, for "an indissoluble union" with France. Please bear that in mind and then compare what Nick said with what was said on the 1996 BBC programme (on which this 2016 programme drew so heavily):
Michael Elliott (presenter): There was a time, not so long ago, when Britain welcomed the idea of European union. In June 1940 London was bracing itself for the fall of France to the Nazis. General Charles de Gaulle came to London to put an astonishing rescue plan to Winston Churchill: Britain and France should unite as a single nation.
Robert Makins (Foreign Office, 1940): When he arrived he was taken straight into the cabinet room and, of course, we we all agog to know what it was all about, and we were afterwards informed that he had come over with a proposal that there should be a union between France and Britain. with common citizenship.
Michael Elliott: The scheme had been dreamed up by Jean Monnet, a civil servant who would later become the Father of the European Community.
Jean Monnet (reading from his draft declaration): The government of the United Kingdom and the French Republic make this declaration of indissoluble union. Every citizen of France will enjoy immediately citizenship of Great Britain. Every British subject will become a citizen of France.
Michael Elliott: Monnet's draft was agreed in a hurry by Churchill and the war cabinet, with one prophetic proviso. They couldn't stomach his proposal for a single currency. In any case, it all came to naught. The French cabinet turned down Monnet's plan a few hours later.
According to the 1996 programme then, it wasn't Churchill's plan at all. It was Jean Monnet and Charles de Gaulle's plan, and Winston only accepted it "in a hurry".
Two obvious questions arise from that: Why then did Nick Robinson present the Anglo-French 'indissoluble union' plan as being Churchill's when it wasn't? And why did he suggest Churchill ought to be considered the true father of Europe, rather than Monnet?
Those are serious questions I think. I'll keep looking into this, and then see if I can get them answered.
