The uses and misuses of history in politics
Analysis
BBC
4.6 • 1K Ratings
🗓️ 11 November 2019
⏱️ 29 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Barely a day passes when an MP doesn’t reach for an historical analogy to help explain contemporary events. But to what extent do the Battle of Agincourt and World War II really help us better understand what’s happening now? Edward Stourton asks if there is a danger that some politicians might have misunderstood some of the best known moments in Britain’s history?
Guests: Professor David Abulafia (Emeritus, University of Cambridge) Professor Anne Curry (Emeritus, University of Southampton) Professor Neil Gregor (University of Southampton) Professor Ruth Harris (University of Oxford) Professor Andrew Knapp (Emeritus, University of Reading) Professor Andrew Roberts (Visiting, King’s College London) Professor Robert Tombs (University of Cambridge)
Producer: Ben Cooper Editor: Jasper Corbett
Transcript
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| 0:41.0 | Hello, thanks for listening to this edition of Analysis. podcasts. In addition, over the next half hour, I'm going to be exploring how well our politicians understand |
| 0:55.2 | British history. |
| 0:58.6 | Here's Jacob Re Smog, a prominent backbench Conservative MP at the time addressing a fringe meeting at the Conservative Party conference in 2017 on the subject of Brexit. |
| 1:10.0 | Oh, this is so important in the history of our country. I mean this is Magna Carter. |
| 1:14.8 | It's the Virguses coming at Parliament, it's the great reform, it's the Bill of Rights. |
| 1:20.0 | It's so many. It's water loom, it's edging port, it's pressing, we win all these things. |
| 1:27.0 | And it is... |
| 1:29.0 | No, but it's Trafalgar. |
| 1:31.0 | Absolutely. and Trafalgar absolutely. |
| 1:35.0 | All of those battles were of course British or English victories over the French. |
| 1:40.0 | And Agin court especially has for centuries been celebrated as a defining moment of our history. |
| 1:47.0 | The way its story has been told is a striking case study in the use and sometimes abuse of history to make a political point. |
| 1:56.4 | The phenomenon we're going to explore in this programme. |
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