BBC Radio 4 marks a year out from Brexit - a review

So how did BBC Radio 4's much-anticipated Brexit day - Britain at the Crossroads - on 29 March pan out?

This, you may recall, was the BBC's way of marking one year before the date when we leave the EU, and it was evidently meant to showcase the BBC's range, depth and impartiality.  

I've not have the time to write about it so far, frustratingly, but I have (at last) finally heard it all.

In lieu of a full-scale review (to come, no doubt, from the good folk at News-watch), I'll give my own impressions at, hopefully, not too great length (as John Milton might have said before preparing to publish Paradise Lost)....

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Iain Martin in his lab

The Brexit Lab

Firstly, the day did feature a programme presented by a pro-Brexit (non-BBC) journalist. Iain Martin's The Brexit Lab focused on possible positive outcomes for the UK after Brexit. 

Lord Pearson of Rannoch has been challenging the BBC for nearly two years now to name a single example of a Brexit documentary that focused mainly on the positives of Brexit. Answer there came none...

...until The Brexit Lab.

I thought at the time that it was going to be used as the BBC's 'Get Out of Jail Free' card and that they'd plug it for all it's worth - and, if last week's Feedback is anything to go by, that's already proving to be the case.

The BBC's political advisor Ric Bailey said, if you recall, "And incidentally, there was an entire half-hour programme which Iain Martin did on Radio 4 a couple of weeks ago, precisely on that point about the opportunities Brexit, so they are there, and we are, you know, it’s an active part of our journalism."

Well no, Ric, it's not an active part of your journalism. On Radio 4, it's been a complete and utter one-off. 

(The occasional A Point of View from Roger Scruton or John Gray doesn't count as they aren't documentaries).

The fascinating thing though about Iain's The Brexit Lab is that it was 'more BBC than the BBC', so to speak. It really did try to be impartial. The guest list ranged far-and-wide and had a very decent balance of Remainers and Leavers, and lefties, righties and centrists (Caroline Flint, Paul Mason, Oliver Lewtin, Greenpeace's Douglas Parr on one side, Joshua Burke, Michael Gove, Mark Littlewood and Gerald Lyons on the other, with David Halpern, Nicole Badstuber and Julie Fourcade floating somewhere hard to place in between.) And Iain Martin was very generous in letting all sides have their say whilst toning down his own views.

The particularly interesting thing about this programme, however, is that Radio 4's continuity announcer announced it as:

a very personal view

I heard that live as I drove home from work that day and thought, "Well, I've never heard a programme announced like that before".

I mean, it wasn't just that the BBC announcer called it "a personal view", he called it "a very personal view".  

Have you ever heard a Radio 4 programme announced like that before (and, more importantly, can you name it)?

It strikes me as fascinating that the one pro-Brexit-leaning documentary broadcast by BBC Radio 4 since June 2016 was introduced with such a heavy distancing caveat by the BBC. 

No such caveats preceded (or followed) any of the other BBC programmes that day - even those presented by strongly anti-Brexit (non-BBC) presenters like David Aaronovitch and Jonathan Freedland.

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Uriah Davis?

The EU After Brexit

And now let's move onto the rest, starting with the only programme I listened to fully at the time: The EU After Brexit (though also half-hearing The Brexit Lab), co-presented by Evan Davis and David Aaronovitch.

I rolled my eyes at it at the time, and those eyes of mine are still rolling on (like Ol' Man River). Here - unlike Iain Martin - you have a BBC man and an anti-Brexit man. And yet - unlike Iain Martin - neither of them (BBC or non-BBC) made the slightest attempt to balance their programme. 

Seriously, please listen to this and compare it to The Brexit Lab. While The Brexit Lab had a wide variety of voices, The EU After Brexit - over the course of an entire hour of BBC broadcasting - did not see fit to include a single Eurosceptic voice. 

It's not as it there aren't plenty of Eurosceptic voices across the EU, but Evan and David didn't talk to a single one of them. 

Before listening to it I laid out my expectations for what an unbiased BBC programme about the EU after Brexit would be. and top of my list was that - given the depth of Eurosceptism across Europe - it would feature Europhile and Eurosceptic voices. I thought that was the least it could do, and actually expected at least some sop to 'BBC impartiality' by the brief appearance of, say, some 'far-right populist' (for balance!). But even that never came. 

There wasn't a Eurosceptic voice anywhere to be heard. This was a view 'from Europe' which excluded Eurosceptic voices. 

This programme was, therefore, deeply and unquestionably biased.

The David Aaronovich bits featured pro-EU former ECB banker Jean-Claude Trichet, pro-EU Daniela Schwarzer of the German Council on Foreign Relations, pro-EU Labour former Dutch finance minister Jeroen Dijsselbloem and an academic from Warsaw University called Justyna who put the Polish point(s) of view in a dispassionate, academic way. 

Then came Evan Davis's bit featuring three EU businessmen - Lorenzo Bini Smaghi, chairman of Société Générale (former ECB); Matt Regan, Senior Vice President & Head of Europe of Novo Nordisk (Denmark); and Teofil Muresan, chairman of Electrogrup (Romania). 

Evan's opening commentary was about UK pro-Brexit people saying that being attached to the EU was being "shackled to a corpse", to a "shrinking proportion of the world economy" and to a zone that's "ill-adapted to change". What did his three EU business leaders make of that, he wondered. Well, guess what? They all think the EU is flipping marvellous!! 

Evan's little 'Evanisms' were all present and correct too. His first question to his first question was 'What is good? What is bad? about the EU. This second question to his second guest dropped the 'What is bad?' part of it and just went with 'What is good?' And when Evan told one of them not to 'talk Brexit', he later asked all three of them for their views about Brexit (with very predictable results). 

This programme is one that goes entirely into the pro-EU-biased column. 

BBC reporter Adam Fleming's commentary during the programme is worth looking at too, especially as regard President Macron (a dubious pro-EU take on why people voted for him - because he's pro-EU!) and anti-EU "propaganda" (as Adam put it) from Hungary's Viktor Orban that would make UKIP types "blush" (as Adam also put it) - highly loaded language.

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Jean-Claude Juncker (after one too many glasses of claret)

The Long View

As for Jonathan Freedland's The Long View Brexit Special, well, yes, anti-Brexit Jonathan's guests throughout were pro-Brexit Kwasi Kwarteng and anti-Brexit Eloise Todd.  

So far so balanced. 

The programme, however, was fascinating, full of historically questionable analogies - and deeply biased. 

Expert One used to flight of some Anglo-Saxons to Asia Minor after the Norman Conquest to talk about the "rhetoric" of "nostalgia" that has "bled into the Brexit debate" - " the emotional connection to an ideal of a land rather than perhaps a more critical understanding that sometimes history changes and that sometimes you can’t turn back the clock". 

Jonathan Freedland then asked Kwasi Kwarteng about "older voters" behaving like those Anglo-Saxons "unnerved by hearing alien tongues" (nudge, nudge, hint, hint - not that Kwasi picked up on what JF was implying!) whilst asking Eloise Todd a very different kind of question, about whether it was her "understanding" that it was "a kind of nostalgic longing" that motivated those doomed Anglo-Saxons. Eloise then blew JF's not-so-well-hidden cover by immediately answering about Brexit and Leave voters and pretty much calling for a second referendum. 

The expert then praised the good things the Norman Conquest had brought and ended by opining, "And, in fact, the point about people today being uncomfortable about hearing different languages, again, I think goes back to the point of nostalgia for a place that is an ideal rather than a reality."

I won't go on, but the rest of the programme continued in a similar vein. 

There was the Napoleon blockade bit about how bad it was for the UK and how the UK wanted to be at the heart of Europe to counteract it. (JF: "So there’s George Canning then, Foreign Secretary, asserting Britain’s right to sit at the very centre of the European system.  Listening to that, Kwasi Kwartang, don’t you think George Canning would be amazed today if he heard that Britain was voluntarily taking itself out of the single market, the trading market of Europe, when he was prepared to use military might, naval might in order to make sure that Britain was right there in the centre of that trading system?") 

And then the programme, taunting Brexiteers, resurrected that old canard that Winston Churchill was in favour of an Anglo-French union in the early years of the Second World War. 

We've been here before. (See here too). It's not true.

Winston Churchill after bathing in the sea at Deauville, France (1922)

And JF, being biased, naturally used it in contrasting ways. To his pro-Brexit guest he asked:

Kwasi Kwartang, no figure in British history is more lionised by all sides, but especially by the Eurosceptic side of British politics than Winston Churchill, the great British bulldog, and there he is, calling for merger between Britain and France, the declaration says there won’t be two nations anymore. Surely that is a shocking fact for Eurosceptics and particularly their view of Winston Churchill?

To his anti-Brexit guest he asked:

Eloise Todd, when you hear that, of the man voted the greatest ever Britain calling for a union between Britain and France, does that alter your perspective on Britain’s relationship with Europe?

As you can see, he was asking the same question from the same stance both times, disadvantaging the pro-Brexit guest and advantaging the anti-Brexit guest. That's how biased interviewing works.

To conclude Jonathan Freedland asked his three experts for their summary. I think I need to quote this in full to give you a flavour of just how unbalanced the programme was in choosing its experts from all the available opinions and framing the questions. (Only David Reynolds refused to reveal his hand):

Jonathan Freedland: Let’s broaden out a little bit. History has played a big part in this Brexit debate, it’s raging right now with these protestors in Westminster. Erin Goeres and David Andress our historians from earlier have rejoined us here on College Green, and Erin Goeres, start with you, history is often very contested, what role do you think it has played in the debate about Brexit? But perhaps more importantly, what role should history play in this today?
Erin Goeres: I think looking back at history is a good reminder that we don’t stand at a unique moment we have seen from all of these examples that Britain has a long and complicated relationship with Europe, it is an issue that is revisited time and time again.  Britain has always been a part of Europe culturally, linguistically, politically, it’s just to what degree should we negotiate that.
Jonathan Freedland: But it seems like it’s almost always been an uncomfortable relationship, there’s always jostling and jockeying and arguing, David Andress?  I know there was a group called Historians for Britain that was on the pro-Brexit side, I think you signed a letter on the other side of the argument, can history play an important role in this discussion?
David Andress: Well, I think one of the important things we have to remember is that people don’t really learn very much history.  They learn a lot of things that they think are history, they think they understand where we’ve been in the past, because they vaguely remember things they were told at school, or politicians or newspapers use historical reference.  But in the context that I was talking about earlier, a couple of hundred years ago one of the things that you absolutely have to recognise is, on the one hand, Britain absolutely wants to remain part of this jostling European process, it cannot conceive of itself working in the world without being part of a European concert of nations. And on the other hand, when we look back and talk about British greatness, its prosperity, over the intervening two hundred years, it’s absolutely connected to the fact of Empire, to the fact of dominating and exploiting tens of millions of people all around the world. We’re simply not in that position any more.  We were the America and China combined of 200 years ago, and we no longer live in a world where we can expect to take anything by force, we have to cooperate and collaborate.
Jonathan Freedland: David Reynolds, the bit of history you talked about with us, of 1940 and Britain standing alone, it’s entered the mythology it’s in some ways the sort of founding narrative of modern Britain, it was a big part of the Eurosceptic case that Britain had stood alone, didn’t need the rest of Europe and could stand alone again.  What’s the reading you have of that 1940 episode in terms of Britain’s relations with Europe?
David Reynolds: Well you see, I’m not so keen on the idea of using history as analogy, I’m not so keen on the idea that it’s a source of lessons we can pull of the shelf and say, ‘Ah, this is a 1940 moment’ or whatever it is. For me, history is a way of thinking, and what one is trying to do as a historian is understand, if you like, complex situations from the past, what’s the elements that went into decision-making then, all the different factors and that’s then a way of helping people to open up their thinking about the situation is now, what kind of factors should be taken in, how should leaders respond, don’t go for the quick fix, ask yourself . . . don’t ask for the lessons from history, say, ‘Well, what’s the story we’re in now,’ and then try and make some sensible judgements. 

That could hardly be less impartial as a piece of broadcasting #despiteKwasiKwarteng. And yet, unlike with Iain Martin's programme, it wasn't introduced as either "a personal view" or "a very personal view" - something that speaks volumes about BBC impartiality and how the BBC sees BBC impartiality.

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Really, Craig? Are you really going with this image to illustrate the next section of the post?

Oh dear, this short summary is already getting close to Miltonian length (without the magnificent language), and I've not even touched on the big main Radio 4 current affairs staples on Radio 4's Britain at the Crossroads day.

I'll try to be brief (as Tolstoy said before writing War and Peace - according to the BBC's Reality Check)...

The World Tonight

Working backwords, The World Tonight featured (as its only Brexit feature) a truly classic BBC report from BBC veteran Allan Little.

It was everything a cynic would expect from a BBC report - and the mighty Allan is a veritable master of such things.

It featured a balance of talking heads - two pro-Brexit ones, followed by three anti-Brexit ones. The first pro-Brexit voice was an aggrieved fisherman, the second a pro-Brexit blogger.

After the latter appeared, Allan said (in a subtly undermining way), "But is this anything more than a leap of faith, based on ideological conviction, rather than evidence?

And guess what? Everything that followed gave an emphatic, undermining 'no' to that question.

First came an historian talking of "Imperial amnesia" on the part of Leave voters.

Next came a fruit processing company that fears Brexit - the "fear that that Brexit vision will cut Britain off from the workforce it needs".

And finally come another Kent businesswoman who pronounced herself "petrified" about Brexit.

And Allan Little ended with the less-than-reassuring words:

No one knows what kind of Britain will emerge in the years that lie ahead, but the journey begins a year from now.  There is no return ticket and the destination remains unknown...

Seriously, Allan is one of the absolute masters of biased BBC reporting. If I were teaching the dark angels of Hell in the arts of subtle reporting (to Hell's advantage) I'd start with a thorough exploration of Allan Little dark genius at this kind of thing - and this very example. 

Allan's particular genius, I suspect, is that he doesn't believe he's being biased, even for a second. I bet it never even occurs to him, and that he sees any criticism as his reporting as being simply invalid.

PM

That day's PM meanwhile gave over a lot of time to BBC Reality Check's supreme guru Chris Morris - someone whose bias against Brexit we've spent hours and hours detailing. It's no longer available on the BBC iPlayer but I heard it and it was typical Chris Morris as far as Brexit is concerned.

I should have transcribed it to capture it for posterity, but if you know your Chris Morris (as regular readers will), you'll easily imagine what you've missed.

The World at One

That day's The World at One featured (like that night's The EU After Brexit) the view from the Continental EU - from the BBC's Chris Paige in Ireland, the BBC's Lucy Williamson in France, Jenny Hill in Germany and Adam Easton in Poland. 

It was all disappointment and negativity about Brexit. 

The famous Laura Kuenssberg....

....(and, for all passing Corbynistas, I'll say "Boo!!" for you here to save you a little time)....

....popped up in between interviewing Theresa May on the Brexit issue. 

'Tory' Laura pressed the Tory PM on whether there would be a 'Brexit dividend', specifically as regards NHS spending. (We don't need to guess which much-mentioned bus motivated that line of BBC questioning). 

To sum up the other contributions here: Chris Paige said that Ireland is looking to the EU more than ever; Lucy Williamson said that "President Macron’s gaze is fixed towards Europe, not across the Channel"; and Jenny Hill said that the "back in business" Mrs Merkel is focused on the integrity of the EU, not Britain and its "baffling" decision to leave the EU.  Oh dear, Britain.

As for Poland, Adam Easton said that even the "most Eurosceptic" government there since Poland joined the EU "knows the benefits membership brings". 

And then Mark Mardell began his new history of the EU-UK relationship...to which I'll return when it finishes. It began with Mark highlighting that OMG The Daily Mail was in favour of us joining the EEC and went on from there. 

Some bridge in Stockton-on-Tees

Today

And as for Today, what can be said? 

Well, its starting point defined it. 

It started from Stockton-on-Tees with Mishal Husain saying "And to mark that anniversary we've come to a car parts factory on Teesside", and then adding: "Before the referendum its managing director warned that leaving the EU would be business suicide. Today, however they voted, his staff just want the process over with".

And guess what? The factory's managing director, interviewed later, still thinks that leaving the EU is a bad idea.

That's a good one for Lord Adonis. One this landmark day of BBC broadcasting why did Today decide to broadcast from a factory whose owner had previously declared it would be "business suicide" to leave the EU? Did they expect him (wrongly) to have changed his mind, or did they expect him (rightly) to still hold much the same anti-Brexit view?

Matthew Price was on hand throughout too. His first contribution was typically downbeat:

Absolutely, good morning, yeah. We’re going to hear a lot about the uncertainty that the people in this factory feel during the programme, and in fact, the BBC's internal surveys show us that people as a whole understand less about the Brexit process now than they did even just 6 months ago. 

And gloomy Matthew also ended the programme in the same downbeat way:

The BBC carries out internal research to see what audiences make of certain issues. People are concerned about the impact on the NHS, they are concerned about the way it’s going to affect the pound in their pocket, their jobs.  One of the most striking observations before we leave, one year before we leave the EU, is the growing number of people who feel they just don’t fully understand Brexit. 

To which Mishal gave the closing reply, "Matthew, thank you."

In between came sections featuring employees at that company and a young people's panel, plus BBC reporters from the three non-English nations of the United Kingdom, a section on the Arts and Brexit, as well as interviews with the Lib Dems (Jo Swinson), Labour (John McDonnell), the Conservatives (Liam Fox) and the SNP (Stephen Gethins). And, for good measure, there was a short, interruption-strewn interview with John Longworth of Leave Means Leave and a longer, much-less-interruption-strewn interview with Tony Blair. However you class John McDonnell, that's a tilt towards anti-Brexit interviewees. 

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So, as you can see, there's still at lot to dig into - especially as regards Today - but the trajectory remains clear.

For a day of Radio 4 broadcasting that was, apparently, meant to exemplify the BBC at its impartial best, this day of BBC broadcasting in fact showed the BBC to be incapable of producing a fair package of programmes on the issue of Brexit. 

It was - with the exception of The Brexit Lab - the usual BBC stuff, pumping out negativity about Brexit pretty much all of the ways.

And it really is no use the BBC citing Lord Adonis & Co. in 'complaints from both sides' evidence here, grasping at The Brexit Lab and instantly escalating it to Ofcom in a colossal huff. The balance of that day's Radio 4 broadcasting was a tsunami of bias in favour of negativity about Brexit. 

I seriously challenge anyone (with time on their hands) to review this day's output for themselves and argue otherwise. You will fail (I think).

Snapshot III

While we're on that Who's Won the White House? BBC One special tonight...

There was bleak, threatening mood music accompanying an item by pro-EU BBC veteran Allan Little, and his piece didn't hesitate to draw links between the "fear" felt by Trump supporter and Brexit supporters ("from western Pennsylvania to Brexit Britain") or to make some familiar 'Remoaner' points:

It is a revolt too against governing elites - people perceived to have done well out of the globalised economy. 

And that distrust has walked hand in hand with a revolt against expertise. 

It has brought a new age of post-truth politics - first, public scepticism towards the glib and oily arts of political spin; now a widespread disregard for evidence. 

The Brexit campaign promised £350 million a week available for the NHS. It wasn't true but it didn't matter.

The 'Newsnight' after the night before

Closer to an 11% than a 10% margin, the thumping decisiveness of the outcome of the Scottish independence referendum probably played no small part in the shock decision of Alex Salmond to step down. Waking up to this morning's Today I thought he must have died as well overnight, given the speak-well-of-the-dead tone of the coverage. It was like listening to an actual obituary rather than just a 'political obituary'.

I watched last night's Newsnight too. It had the cream of its Scottish team on display - Kirsty Wark, Laura Kuenssberg, Andrew Neil and Allan Little - plus a smattering of English ones. 

It began with a Laura K report from Glasgow - one of the few places in Scotland to vote against the union. It focused on  the depression and bemusement felt by the Yessers, but gave the 'No' reaction in between before ending with the seemingly sectarian scuffles in central Glasgow yesterday evening. Laura made the statement that "we know now that the vast majority of people who said 'No' made their minds up more than a year ago and simply didn't budge", which made me wonder why on earth the combined brains of the BBC couldn't have worked that out beforehand and told us. 

Next came a short interview with Allan Little about Alex Salmond's resignation. Allan Little paid Alex Salmond a glowing tribute, and suggested with Nicola Sturgeon may "come on leaps and bounds now" Kirsty Wark agreed that Ms Sturgeon is "ready". (Allan Little, incidentally, is the only BBC reporter I've seen who's received plenty of bouquets from the cybernats on Twitter for his reporting.)

This was followed by the West Lothian Question and an interview with the man who first asked it, former Labour MP Tam Dalyell. Mr Dalyell is now 82 and Kirsty Wark conducted her interview with him as if he were 102, smiling at him encouragingly all the time. It's a wonder she didn't keep stopping the interview to ask if he wanted a cup of tea or needed a blanket or something. Mr Dalyell was typically forthright, not sparing either Ed Miliband or Gordon Brown in his contempt for the panicky concessions 'the three main UK parties' made after that (especially) duff opinion poll a week or so back. Tam Dalyell remains a robust defender of the union and constitutional fairness. If the Gordon Brown proposals are put in place in Scotland then, Mr Dalyell said, 'English votes for English laws' is the only fair solution. If Labour were unable to enact a lot of legislation in England thereafter as a result, that would only be fair. It's a matter of principle for him rather than party advantage.

Next up was a report from Allegra Stratton (she of 'the Westminster Bubble') on Westminster-based political class's response. She began by stating that David Cameron had made his 'English votes for English laws' pitch as a political manoeuvre to scupper Labour (calling it "a dawn raid on Ed Miliband"). Of course, she might very well be right that Mr Cameron was playing party politics here rather than being principled in the way of a Tam Dalyell and seeing no alternative to such a move on grounds of fairness if Scotland were to be given 'Devo Max'. Still, she certainly wasn't letting the Newsnight audience make its own mind up about that - and it's an accusation that Labour have been making too. 

We heard during Allegra's report from Conservative MP Graham Brady (the one who looks a little like Prince Andrew) calling for an English parliament (which, given what seems to be coming in Scotland, is something we in England should have in my opinion), and from Labour's Lord Falconer rejecting the idea of an English parliament on the grounds that it would leave a "hollowed-out UK parliament" (neatly side-stepping the fact that devolution in Scotland and Wales has already done some of that hollowing-out, and that 'Devo Max' would do much more - ie side-stepping the West Lothian Question). Allegra Stratton added her own scepticism while introducing Lord Falconer ("But in a two-tier parliament a Tory administration would be more likely on English-only days an Labour administrations on UK days. Which one is more important is unclear.") The Conservative MP Owen Paterson then appeared to say that devolution shouldn't be rushed until the question of taxation and spending is settled as, as the moment, devolved politicians can "get a free hit" by promising all manner of things without being fully accountable for them.

Andrew Neil was next, with a complaint on behalf of Newsnight: 

Now that the Tories' plan for more devolution involves running a coach and horses through the rest of our constitution in a matter of weeks, or at least months, we thought they might like to come on the programme to discuss what they're doing, but they declined. Well, it's only a thousand year old constitution! Anyway...

Anyway, he interviewed Labour's Chuka Ummuna instead, concentrating on the issue of 'English votes from English laws'. I think it's fair to say that Andrew Neil well and truly skewered Mr Ummuna here - a task made easier by Mr Ummuna's incompetent evasiveness (aka 'waffling'). He just wouldn't answer a direct question, and Andrew Neil's not one to stand for that. Therefore, Ian Katz's lovely vision of nicer interviews where politicians are more open and interviewers give them more time as a result was conspicuous by its absence here. 

It was great theatre though, resulting in one of those 'ouch!' moments from Chuka. Fans of The Thick of It will love this:

Andrew Neil:...If [Scottish Labour] is not run by a bunch of nonentities, could...other than the Scottish Labour leader...could you name three members of the Labour shadow cabinet?

Chuka Ummuna: Of our shadow cabinet?

Andrew Neil: Yes, the Labour shadow...in Scotland?

Chuka Ummuna: Well, you've got Johann Lamont...

Andrew Neil: No, other than her!

Chuka Ummuna: You've got Kezia Dugdale..

Andrew Neil: What does she do?

Chuka Ummuna: I'm not totally sure of the exact portfolio she...

Andrew Neil: She's Education. 

Chuka Ummuna: But the point is...

Andrew Neil:  Could you name any more?

Chuka Ummuna: Er...not off  the top of my head, no, but I mean your point...I'm not a Scottish...

Andrew Neil: You don't know who your shadow cabinet in Scotland is?  

Chuka Ummuna: I'm not a Scottish MP and I'm not a member of the Scottish shadow cabinet...

Andrew Neil: We have to leave it there.

Then Andrew interviewed Conservative peer Lord Heseltine, beginning by asking him about the West Lothian Question and whether he believes it should be answered with 'English votes for English Laws'. Lord Hezza's reply was simply, "Yes." They got into something of a scrap over definitions of 'decentralisation' and 'devolution' - a scrap which, through forcibly refusing to be 'moved along', Lord H rather defeated Andrew Neil over (and, if they're right about something and not being evasive, politicians should stand their ground).

The West Lothian Question continued to hold centre stage during the following report by Newsnight's Chris Cook. After outlining what that questions means, he outlined three alternatives: 

(1) An English parliament along the lines of the existing Scottish parliament, Welsh Assembly and Stormont, possibly in a Northern city. (Lancaster, anyone?) This, he said, would involve the cost of the new parliament and the creation of a new capital city for England. (Lancaster, anyone?) The UK parliament would run parallel to them all, doing 'federal stuff'. 

(2) 'English votes for English laws' - having the existing MPs for English seats meet on their own without the other MPs to debate and discuss English matters. This would entail having a new executive [akin to the ones in Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland] answerable to English MPs, but how would that work if England didn't have its own first minister? Who would stand up for England, say, if there were a dispute between the constituent devolved governments of the UK? As English MPs dominate the UK parliament, couldn't they grant special favours to this English first minister?

(3) As English MPs dominate the UK parliament, wouldn't they be too dominant within the union? (Similarly, an English parliament). To counteract that, we could follow the U.S. example (ie the Senate) and, say, give each of the four countries of the United Kingdom an equal number of peers. That's not very democratic, but it would be a reasonable check and balance.

I'll have an English parliament (in Lancaster) elected by PR, a first minister (based in Morecambe town hall, pictured above) chosen by that parliament, a federal UK parliament (at Westminster!) with a House of Commons elected by first-past-the-post (as now, but with far fewer members and larger, fairer constituency sizes) plus a beefed-up House of Lords that, as suggested above, acted as an appointed answer to the U.S. Senate (with equal number of peers appointed from each of the four parts of the UK) but which somehow tried to reserve space for non-politicians and the great, good and wise. And, of course, H.M. the Queen. Simple, eh?

Kirsty Wark then interviewed another Conservative MP - former Attorney General Dominic Grieve. Mr Grieve took a fairly cautious but potentially radical approach, arguing against rushing but wanting a whole package to answer the West Lothian Question rather than bits and bats. "We've got to answer the West Lothian Question or, quite frankly, England will go 'Bang!' at some point", he said. He also thinks the "cack-handed" Welsh devolution legislation needs looking at. "At the moment we have a Welsh devolution settlement where, as I know from my time as Attorney General, nobody actually knows what the paper means", he said. He doesn't want an English parliament though. Kirsty thanked him for "being so candid".

It was then back to Andrew Neil for a chat with a couple of journalists: Beth Rigby of the Financial Times and Steve Richards of the Independent. Beth admired David Cameron's strategy while Steve spun it in the other direction.

Finally, it was back to Scotland and what the result means for Scottish politics. A report from David Grossman (isn't he Newsnight's technology correspondent now?), featuring Salmond biographer David Torrence (author of Salmond - Against the Odds) and Dr Alan Convery of Edinburgh University, looked (rather generously) at Alex Salmond's political successes -  David Grossman even compared him to Barack Obama at one point in his attention-grabbing hopey-changey message - and then looked at where Scottish nationalism is going next, including the speculation that this has been its high-water point:

And there is a school of thought that suggests the stars will never again be as perfectly aligned for nationalism, not least having an old Etonian Conservative prime minister pushing through a programme of austerity.

The programme closed with a panel discussion on these matters, chaired by Kirsty Wark. The panel consisted of: (1) The BBC's Allan Little, (2) historian (and 'Yes' voter) Sir Tom Devine, (3) historian (and unionist) William Dalrymple, (4) journalist (and 'Yes' voter) Lesley Riddoch, and (5) Times columnist (and unionist) Magnus Linklater. That's a balanced panel, for sure, and there was plenty of disagreement, but it did seem rather more biased than it ought to have done, perhaps, due to Allan Little's contributions, especially his glowing presentation of the 'Yes' side in the referendum debate. His remarks had Tom Devine and Lesley Riddoch smiling, nodding and agreeing.

A very interesting edition of Newsnight on the whole, with only a few smatterings of bias here and there.

Allan Little's Choice

This isn't really a topical blog but I'd like to make a few observations on a programme that will be broadcast on BBC Radio 4 this evening. It's Allan Little's latest BBC documentary on the European Union, Europe Moves East. 

It sounds rather as if it will be a follow-up to his major Radio 4 series from earlier this year, Europe's Choice . This (you may or may not remember) was the subject of a post of mine from a couple of weeks ago where I argued that despite taking on a hot political subject - the history of the euro - the programme featured not one single British Eurosceptic (despite there being several attacks on British Eurosceptics in the course of the series) on any of its three episodes; instead, it piled on pro-EU enthusiast after pro-EU enthusiast (several of them from Britain). Only in the third and final episode did a Eurosceptic voice (from Finland) make an appearance, and his remarks were undermined by Allan Little's commentary.  The central thesis of Europe's Choice was that the euro crisis had been caused by too little EU intervention, due to Germany not wanting to throw its weight around enough – a highly Europhile contention. At the end of that post I anticipated this new documentary, wondering what it would be like. 

Well, we've already had a foretaste of tonight's broadcast. The BBC News website is prominently featuring an article based on the programme, written by Allan Little himself. 

My alarm bells are already ringing. The range of commentators looks as if it will include many of the same cast-list of strong pro-Europeans as appeared last time round - ranging from John, Lord Kerr to Joachim Bitterlich, Helmut Kohl’s advisor; from Dietrich von Kyaw, the former German ambassador, to Poland's Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski. The online article is also unremitting in its presentation of "the EU as liberator", securing the former Soviet Bloc nations into the democratic European family. John, Lord Kerr is saying that the Eurosceptic Brits got it wrong. Mr. Sikorski is calling for Germany to lead in Europe and for more EU intervention.  Dietrich von Kyaw is emotionally wedded to the European Union. And a young Pole is quoted endorsing their pro-EU sentiments too:

Generally, Central Europeans do not feel they have merely joined the European Union, they feel they have fulfilled a destiny disrupted by war. It is a sentiment echoed by the young. 

So, it's looking like being another Allan Little documentary on the European project that will annoy British (and European) Eurosceptics while delighting British (and European) Europhiles. It looks as if it will be just as biased.

However, it's too soon to say. The programme hasn't even been broadcast yet. This article is obviously only a brief (if biased) taster for the full 40-minute long radio programme. Hopefully that will present a fuller, more rounded picture. 

Here are some tests for Europe Moves East in advance, all of which it ought to pass if its reporting is to be seen as impartial:  

- That is should feature some British Eurosceptics to balance John, Lord Kerr. It shouldn't just be another diet of pro-EU enthusiasts such as Timothy Garton Ash, Sir Stephen Wall and Douglas Hurd. If Allan fails to include any such voices (or massively weights his choice of voices in one direction) he can be judged to have failed to give an important voice in the argument a proper hearing - thus failing the BBC's own guidelines for impartiality. If he does include some (and I'm fearing he won't), he should not seek to undermine their arguments in his surrounding commentary - especially if he doesn't also seek to undermine the arguments of his pro-Europeans talking heads as well.

- That it must feature some Polish Eurosceptics to balance the EU enthusiast Radoslaw Sikorski and "26-year-old Mateusz Koracki", the pro-EU Polish youth. It's no good Allan Little painting a picture of a Poland that is wildly enthusiastic about the EU. Poland has been one of the keenest pro-EU countries of the last decade, but the main opposition party in Poland is now firmly Eurosceptic and it's leader, Jarosław Kaczynski, said of Mr. Sikorski, "That man had no right to offer Germany leadership in the European Union." There are other anti-EU parties in Poland too,  such as the League of Polish Families, and other powerful voices against - such as Father Tadeusz Rydzyk, the head of the Catholic radio station Radio Maryja. We must hear at some length from their side of the Polish argument too. If we don't, something will be very amiss about this documentary.

- That it should balance its coverage of broadly pro-EU Poland with coverage from the more Eurosceptic Czech Republic. An interview with the Eurosceptic Czech president Václav Klaus - a fine speaker of English and usually happy to be interviewed by British news organisations! - or with Jan Zahradil, head of the the European Conservatives and Reformists group in the European parliament (which also includes the UK Conservative Party), is surely a must. Mr. Zahradil's position is particularly interesting. The Czechs have had a traumatic history, just like their Polish neighbours. Why is Euroscepticism strong there? Will Allan Little tell us? If Europe Moves East fails to get to grips with Czech Euroscepticism then I will be suspecting bias.

- That any mention of pro-EU enthusiasm in the Baltic States should also mention the strength of Euroscepticism in Latvia. Only 38% of Latvians believe that EU membership has benefited their, according to the European Commission.

- That the strength of Euroscepticism in Hungary should also be discussed. With the UK and Latvia, Hungary is the country whose people supports EU membership the least. According to the European Commission itself in 2009, a survey asking whether citizens feel that their country has benefited from EU membership found that only 36% of Hungarians thought it had (compared to 34% in the UK). If Hungarian anti-EU sentiment is mentioned will Allan Little present it in all its depth and breadth? (Incidentally, that same Commission report found that even Bulgaria (with 48% approval) was also in the "less than half the citizens believe EU membership has benefited their country" category. Will Allan Little's documentary reflect that too?) The strength of Euroscepticism in Hungary is something that Europe Moves East would be highly remiss not to cover. So will it cover it?

- That Euroscepticism in Eastern Europe shouldn't be tied disingenuously to the far-Right. (Most of the far-Right is Eurosceptic and far-Right parties are gaining ground there). That would be a smear and proof of bias. (64% of Hungarians don't all support Jobbik!)

So, the programme shouldn't be seen to be pro-EU. It shouldn't feature as 'talking heads' merely the same old bunch of pro-Europeans from Britain and Europe as featured in Europe's Choice. It must feature a fair smattering of Eurosceptic 'talking heads' from both Britain and Eastern Europe. It should seek to reflect the depth of Euroscepticism as well as pro-European popular and elite sentiment in several of the recently acceded former Soviet Bloc countries. It shouldn't cast the British Conservatives as being on the wrong side of history without also inviting a 'talking head' to defend the British Conservatives' interpretation of events. It shouldn't be full of grandiloquent gush about the liberating effects of the European Union, without plenty of voices to cast cold water on that point of view.  

These are very reasonable demands, I think. 

If you haven't got anything better to do, why not give the programme a listen tonight (8.00pm, GMT)? Let's see if Allan Little can confound all my fears. If he does, I will be giving him full credit shortly after.

*******

Allan Little has also drawn on some of the same stories found in the online article for a new For Our Own Correspondent piece. His FOOC talk is an emotionally-charged piece that draws again on the experiences of Dietrich von Kyaw, the former German ambassador, to Poland, who has painful memories of Germany and Poland's past and who worked on Poland's accession to the European Union, and then draws a direct line between between those experiences and the hopes for peace embodied (in his his way of thinking) by the EU of young Mateusz Koracki, the Polish tour guide. Allan Little powerfully fuses their horror of past conflicts with their gratitude towards the European Union for bringing peace, presenting their shared point of view to the listener and amplifying it with supportive details from history. Does their argument in favour of the EU become his argument in favour of the EU, given that he doesn't seek at any time to add any authorial words of caution or caveat to their perspectives, merely to project the force of them to maximum effect? (Some uncharitable types might call this 'great pro-EU propaganda').

What raised my hackles here was the introduction to the piece from presenter Pascale Harter. Does this introduction not sound as if Allan Little's piece is meant as an official BBC riposte to all those Eurosceptic types who blasted the award of the Nobel Peace Prize to the European Union? (It's best heard to catch Pascale's changing tones of voice, but this transcription should convey a little bit of it):

"The European Union came in for quite a bit of stick recently when it accepted the Nobel Peace Prize. "What achievement!", cried the critics. "The economic crisis has put the whole project in peril!" But is that view shared across the Union or do the more recent members in the East, like Poland, feel differently? Allan Little has met people whose perspective is coloured by a memory of Europe past."

My second thoughts on hearing Allan Little's piece were that it was an argument in favour of awarding the Nobel Peace Prize to the European Union. It may or may not have been deliberately meant as such, but listeners surely cannot have heard it any other way. If you bring up a controversial topic - the question of whether or not the EU should have been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize - and then present a report that gives just one perspective - the shared views of two people (one German, one Polish) who invest their hopes for peace in the EU and credit the EU for bringing and guaranteeing that peace - then you have presented an argument for just one side of that controversy. That much is obvious. Does that mean that the report itself - and, thus, the reporter and the BBC - also answers the Peace Prize question with a "Yes"? Well, obviously not directly. The BBC would probably argue that Allan Little is merely presenting a perspective we in Britain don't hear very often and isn't endorsing it. That he presents it without demur and by amplifying its emotional force might also be defended by the BBC as being what a good reporter who hopes to raise questions in the listener's mind ought to do. That's much more debatable, especially in the context of Pascale Hunter's introduction. If conceded, the problem would then only arise in programmes like FOOC didn't then balance this with other reports which give the anti-EU side of the argument with equal power and also without demur. Have they ever done so?

None of this is allaying my suspicions that tonight's documentary from Allan Little is going to be as restricted in its range of views as the online article and that FOOC report and that it is going to present a pro-EU message with all the communicative force that its presenter can muster whilst downplaying the strong pools of Euroscepticism across parts of Eastern Europe. 

Europe's Choice

During the first couple of months of this year BBC Radio 4 broadcast a major three-part documentary about the European Union. This was Europe’s Choice, Allan Little’s history of the euro. Though not uninteresting, it came across to me as the official BBC line on the years leading up to the birth of the single currency. The programme is still available to re-listen to.    

Episode 1 began with Tony Blair’s chief of staff, Jonathan Powell, attacking Mrs. Thatcher, then went through all manner of key players – Douglas Hurd (pro-European); David, Lord Williamson, former Secretary-General of the European Commission (pro-European); John, Lord Kerr, former UK ambassador to the EU, member of several pro-EU think tanks (pro-European); Sir Nigel Wicks, former aide to Mrs Thatcher who went native in Europe (pro-European); plus Joachim Bitterlich, Helmut Kohl’s advisor; Dietrich von Kyaw, former German ambassador to the EU; and Jacques Lafitte, French former advisor to the EU Commission. Finally, on came Ed Balls to blow his own (and Gordon Brown’s) trumpet.    

So, a BBC programme about a controversial period of recent EU and British history and not a single Eurosceptic in sight. (It comes to something when Ed Balls is the closest thing to one).     

These were all players in the story, but there was an ‘independent expert’ too. Who did Allan Little pick? A disinterested academic? No, it was the arch-Europhile Timothy Garton Ash.     

Episode 2 was again not without interest, but there were still no Eurosceptic voices.   

There was Alistair Darling, giving his own oh-so-independent account of the post-election EU summit where the first bailouts were agreed. He was followed by Blair’s pro-European chief of Staff Jonathan Powell again. Europhile John, Lord Kerr also returned, as did Ambassador von Kyaw and French EU advisor Jacques Lafitte. New voices were former EU commission president Romano Prodi, Greek budget minister Peter Doukas, Greek economist Miranda Xafa and two former UK ambassadors to the EU, Sir Stephen Wall (a Europhile – Denis MacShane loved his book on Europe! – and part of the pro-European Business for a new Europe) and Sir John Grant (also part of the pro-European Business for a New Europe).  

So many Europhiles!  

The thesis of the programme seems to have been this: National governments (plus the markets) were responsible for the present Euro Crisis. The European Commission wasn’t powerful enough to stop them. That’s the problem. So there’s now going to be more powers for the pan-European institutions to keep national governments in check. The ‘talking heads’ were agreed on that. 

Allan Little did mention the ‘democracy’ issue, but John, Lord Kerr said that democratising the EU is not what’s needed at all. The EU should be an unpopular policeman doing the right thing.   

Still, at the very end Allan Little promised that the third and final episode would look at the issue of popular discontent, so maybe, just maybe, we’d get some non-elite, non-Europhile voices the following week. 

Well, the final episode did give some space to a Eurosceptic voice – a single Eurosceptic voice. That was Sampo Terho of the True Finns, introduced as a “nationalist”.

Unlike the other (pro-European) contributors, Allan Little’s commentary undermined his comments by suggesting flakiness, introducing one statement with the words “The True Finns are now flying a conspiracy kite” and afterwards adding that it’s “a seductive conspiracy theory”. Allan Little also carefully labelled him as “Eurosceptic”, while none of the pro-Europeans/Europhiles was described as “pro-European” or “Europhile” – the nearest we got was having one Europhile former mandarin described as “a renowned British European”.

Arch-Europhiles Sir Stephen Wall, Timothy Garton Ash and Lord Kerr returned to shape the narrative in a pro-EU direction. Added to them was Quentin Peel of the Financial Times, another known pro-European (he called the EU “a really exciting project” during the programme).

Ed Balls also returned to give his (unchallenged) self-justificatory slant on events. He and Tony Blair’s chief of staff Jonathan Powell made several appearances across the series. There were no Tories – except for one single appearance from pro-European Douglas Hurd in the first episode.

Why allow Labour such eminence in a series covering some 23 years of recent history? Why not a single British Eurosceptic? There was a clip of the Polish foreign minister attacking British Euroscepticism but Allan Little clearly thought it wasn’t necessary, even then, to grant British Eurosceptics a response.

This episode’s central thesis followed on from those of the earlier episodes – that the current crisis has been caused by too little EU intervention, due to Germany not wanting to throw its weight around enough – a highly Europhile thesis.

Europe’s Choice was, I believe, the BBC making its position on Europe crystal clear again.

Allan Little will be back on Radio 4 on Tuesday 18 December with a programme called Europe Moves East. What will his take be this time?