Radio
Leaking and spinning
Michael Vestey
Ihad to laugh last week when I awoke to Today and heard the BBC swallowing the story of the so-called leaks about the disas- trous consequences of Britain staying out of the euro: the scaremongering by the gov- ernment's chief executive of the Invest in Britain Bureau that there would be 'melt- down' in manufacturing if Britain didn't join, and the telegram from Britain's ambassador to Tokyo warning that Japanese investment would decline.
It was also amusing to hear how the gov- ernment was determined to stop this leak- ing when it was actually behind it. Ironically, it is thanks to BBC radio that we know what is really going on, that there's an orchestrated campaign by the European Movement, among others, and a depart- ment within the Foreign Office, to change public opinion about the single currency, doing what they did in the early 1970s to persuade MPs to vote for Britain's entry and the public to support Britain's mem- bership, both then and in advance of the 1975 referendum.
Some readers might recall that in Febru- ary this year I reviewed a brilliant Radio Four programme called, Document: A Letter to the Times. It told the story of how the shadowy spook-linked Information and Research Department at the Foreign Office, under its head Norman Reddaway, collabo- rated with the CIA-financed European Movement to win the support of the media for membership of what was then quaintly and innocently known as the Common Mar- ket. Breakfasts were held at the Connaught Hotel where ardent Europhiles tried to per- suade the then BBC managing director of radio Ian Trethowan and his executives to sack presenters and reporters deemed to be opposed to the Common Market.
Letters destined for the newspaper cor- respondence pages were actually written for pro-European MPs and businessmen to sign. It was a secret campaign, approved by the prime minister Edward Heath and using civil servants for political purposes. (Evidence of how it's happening again will be gratefully received, in confidence, at my e-mail address: rnichael.vestey@btinter- net.com). So now you know why I croakily laughed out loud that and subsequent mornings. They are at it again! We know the breakfasts are still being held because the man who organised them for the For- eign Office and the European Movement, public relations man Geoffrey Tucker, said as much to Christopher Cook, the presen- ter of Document: A Letter to the Times. This is how the exchange went: Tucker: 'I have breakfasts for Europe, yes.' Cook: `So the battle is not finally over?' Tucker: 'The bat- tle will never be over.'
I also smiled when I saw a letter in the Telegraph last week; the correspondent noted how letters supporting the euro in two different newspapers carried the same phrases and seem to have been written by the same person. This time, I think, the ruthlessness will be greater, as the single currency is for Britain the final major hur- dle to our being trapped in the EU super- state, and this administration is far more unscrupulous in spinning lies and half-truths than even the Heath government was.
The only two people whom I heard on the radio last week to have spotted what is going on were Lord Hanson and the Tory MP Bill Cash, both leading Euro-sceptics, of course. Hanson correctly suggested on Today that these 'leaks' might have been officially sanctioned to pre-empt the gov- ernment report announcing that inward investment had reached record levels with Britain outside the euro. An hour later on the same programme, Hanson was dis- missed as an 'extremist' by Donald Ander- son, the Labour chairman of the Commons Foreign Affairs Committee. Then on Sat- urday, a clip of Bill Cash echoing similar suspicions was followed by a long interview with Kenneth Clarke airily brushing aside the notion.
In the 1970s, the FC0's Information and Research Department and the European Movement targeted various television pro- grammes for their propaganda. With radio it was Today, The World at One and Woman's Hour. Television will again be the main battleground, but which radio pro- grammes and networks are now in their sights? Well, Today, certainly, though they don't have to try too hard there: it naturally exudes a sympathetic tone. The World at One generally sounds impartial and pre- sents a tougher challenge, as does PM. The World Tonight frequently comes across as pro-EU but its audience is smaller.
Radio Five Live is a juicy prize, but every time I've heard it discussing Europe it seems to have been remarkably fair, as it was last week in the Nicky Campbell pro- gramme. Not only was there the man from Business For Sterling but most of the callers were hostile to the single currency, pretty much reflecting opinion in the country. I would think Radios One and Two with their larger audiences might be fertile territory for the European Movement, though their popular music formats would make it more difficult. I wonder if their controllers have been breakfasting well recently?
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