As part of my April Fools' Day cavalcade of hilarity (well, it might have made Baroness Afshar laugh), I mooted the possibility that the BBC might soon start pumping out a variety of pro-EU programmes on Radio 4.
One of my jokes imagined a programme "canvassing views about a possible Brexit from the people and politicians of all those [other EU] countries".
Well, it turns out that my little joke might actually turn out to be not much of a joke at all (which I rather suspected, on more than one level).....and even more quickly than might have been expected.
Radio 4 is running a series in the 1.45 pm spot every day this coming week, which its BBC website blurb introduces like this:
Across this series, five mainland Europeans give their take on Britain's historical relationship with their home country - the historical moments and popular culture that have created the image of the Brit in the mind of continental Europeans.
The notion of Britain being separated in splendid isolation from the continent is fundamental to many of the historical misunderstandings and strains on the relationship with Europe. Yet as frequently as the British appear to be the haughty thorn in Europe's side, our authors find moments of intertwined history that have drawn the island closer to the mainland - from how the Brits live to how they dress and their ability to get a good cup of coffee.
Each author reflects on the moments in their own lives that have drawn them to Britain and Britishness - The Beatles, psychologist Hans-Jürgen Eysenck, or the call of Aberdeen from the most westerly part of Denmark.
Now, this could be a fascinating, unbiased series of love letters to the UK from continental Europe, but, if so, why is the title of the series Inglorious Isolation: A European's History of Britain?
The implications of that title - and the blurb printed in bold above) - have obvious resonances for the upcoming referendum. So why did no one at BBC Radio 4 think it could be a problem?
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As my first April Fools' Day 'prediction' seems to have already come true, I now await Herman van Rompuy's autobiography becoming Radio 4's Book of the Week in the next few weeks.
They can't help themselves, even though they know everyone is watching and waiting for them to slip up. They won't be making a report from the other side with a similarly blatant title.
ReplyDeleteThey are doing it again with Nick Robinson's Referendum programme title "Them or Us" - for the ad he's standing on the white cliffs of Dover thumbing at mainland Europe. It's subtle bias but it's still bias iumplying that to Vote Leave is somehow to cut ourselves off from Europe and become an isolated island. Not so. He could equally have illustrated it with stirring pictures of mariners heading out on
ReplyDeletethe high seas to reconnect the UK to the world at large. Why not? That's the way the Leave campaign frame the argument. "It's us or them" is a loaded phrase which is generally frowned upon in the UK as signalling a return to more primitive times. To adapt that phrase for the EU debate favours the Remainers.