Browse content similar to 04/08/2014. Check below for episodes and series from the same categories and more!
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say that a doctor who treated a Liberian suffering from the Ebola | :00:00. | :00:00. | |
virus has contracted the disease. An earthquake has killed at least 398 | :00:00. | :00:20. | |
people in south`west China. Time for a look at the front pages. Thank you | :00:21. | :00:39. | |
for joining us. Familiar faces. It comes as no surprise what is on the | :00:40. | :00:43. | |
front pages but what is interesting are the images that are selected of | :00:44. | :00:50. | |
the commemorations marking the centenary of World War I. There are | :00:51. | :00:55. | |
so many pictures that could have been chosen. The Express: The day | :00:56. | :01:03. | |
the world remembered them. When you have a tabloid newspaper, there are | :01:04. | :01:08. | |
simple choices for the front page picture, because it is mainly the | :01:09. | :01:13. | |
picture that sells the paper. Pictures with bright colours always | :01:14. | :01:18. | |
do better. When you have an opportunity to use something that | :01:19. | :01:21. | |
has a lot of the colour red in it, it is an opportunity that photo | :01:22. | :01:25. | |
editors grab it with both hands. And the Daily Star has exactly the same | :01:26. | :01:32. | |
shop. But then you go on to something like the Metro, they have | :01:33. | :01:41. | |
gone for a picture of the Duchess of Cambridge laying a wreath in | :01:42. | :01:44. | |
Belgium. And the Daily Mail have done it again. A picture of Kate and | :01:45. | :01:53. | |
Harry and the Archbishop of Canterbury in darkness. The Mirror | :01:54. | :01:58. | |
have chosen very dark pictures of the Tomb of the Unknown Warrior. | :01:59. | :02:06. | |
Let's look at the images the papers have chosen. Red poppies raining | :02:07. | :02:17. | |
down in Dorset. And clearly in the uniforms that were worn by so many | :02:18. | :02:20. | |
men that went into a war they really believed they could win. And so many | :02:21. | :02:29. | |
of them were signing up but none of them could have had any idea what | :02:30. | :02:33. | |
they were heading into. That is the difficulty with this. This is about | :02:34. | :02:38. | |
a myth, it is not about historian. I'm sorry to go through this. Every | :02:39. | :02:46. | |
editorial piece today, there was always one fact that was inevitably | :02:47. | :02:51. | |
wrong. What happened here was that these people were a national army, | :02:52. | :02:56. | |
they were an army that was configured to be in colonial wars | :02:57. | :02:59. | |
like the Boer War, where they did not do so well. They had been | :03:00. | :03:04. | |
thoroughly reformed and they went to fight row in France and took a | :03:05. | :03:12. | |
tasting. The casualty levels `` they took a beating. The casualty levels | :03:13. | :03:18. | |
really shocked the politicians. Within three weeks. It was the | :03:19. | :03:21. | |
Battle of Mons and then the long retreat, where the brunt was born by | :03:22. | :03:27. | |
the French. We are not hearing too much about that. The brunt on the | :03:28. | :03:34. | |
east was born by the Russians. But the British plug the line and by the | :03:35. | :03:39. | |
subsequent spring, that army was broken and it was finished. And it | :03:40. | :03:46. | |
was finished at Ypres. That is their history. But this myth is, oh, what | :03:47. | :03:54. | |
a lovely war and the last great scene of Blackadder goes Forth. That | :03:55. | :03:59. | |
is the iconography. We are looking back at the beginning of a war from | :04:00. | :04:04. | |
a very long distance. This was the piece that I wrote in the Evening | :04:05. | :04:07. | |
Standard. The unfinished business is coming up. It comes up in a lot of | :04:08. | :04:12. | |
the copy but the finest piece that I have read was one written by one of | :04:13. | :04:19. | |
the oldest historians, Sir Michael Howard, who said that actually, when | :04:20. | :04:24. | |
people went to war, not particularly the Britons but the Germans, some | :04:25. | :04:30. | |
French, they were welcoming the war. They thought it was going to be real | :04:31. | :04:34. | |
excitement. They were going to settle the old scores and it would | :04:35. | :04:38. | |
be over by Christmas. And had it been over by Christmas, we would not | :04:39. | :04:44. | |
have got the result many were really wanting. I find it very moving | :04:45. | :04:48. | |
because we are trying to take a snapshot of an age and yet the more | :04:49. | :04:54. | |
you turn the prison, when you look 360 degrees, it was not a happy | :04:55. | :05:00. | |
Europe, it was a Europe that was quarrelling with its self, where a | :05:01. | :05:04. | |
small fights have been doused down for about 20 years before and | :05:05. | :05:08. | |
suddenly it exploded into this and went on for longer and deeper and | :05:09. | :05:13. | |
indeed, the world changed. Now, why the world changed I think is going | :05:14. | :05:18. | |
to be a big thing that we will come up to as we go through the various | :05:19. | :05:20. | |
stages of these commemorations. And we will be looking at the First | :05:21. | :05:25. | |
World War in an area that I do find fascinating because it is not | :05:26. | :05:28. | |
static, this picture. We will have a different view of the road and | :05:29. | :05:33. | |
ourselves by the time we come to 2018. `` a different view of the war | :05:34. | :05:40. | |
and ourselves. By the end of the war, we found out about the truth of | :05:41. | :05:45. | |
the concentration camps. World War II. And that was used as a form of | :05:46. | :05:51. | |
justification, a revisionist justification to justify why we had | :05:52. | :05:56. | |
been fighting. World War I has the same revisionism. Because World War | :05:57. | :06:00. | |
II was a justified war, we like to use that to justify even further | :06:01. | :06:03. | |
back in history World War I, to say oh, it was the Germans again and the | :06:04. | :06:08. | |
same kind of thing will stop and culturally, it becomes part of the | :06:09. | :06:13. | |
same messy thing. I think that is the most powerful element in this | :06:14. | :06:17. | |
because what you get out of this, and you are quite right in that in | :06:18. | :06:18. | |
the very end, was the Second World War where a | :06:19. | :06:53. | |
great journalist, one of the heroes of our trade, did a book called the | :06:54. | :07:03. | |
The Good War. The Second World War could be the good war and it | :07:04. | :07:06. | |
coloured this one because if you look at the way this was regarded in | :07:07. | :07:10. | |
the immediate aftermath, particularly to one of my | :07:11. | :07:13. | |
grandfathers, who was horribly injured in the most terrible | :07:14. | :07:20. | |
fashion, you lived in misery, that this was the bad war and that no | :07:21. | :07:24. | |
good came of it and no good came of the conduct of... David Cameron | :07:25. | :07:29. | |
described World War I as one of the most is not the most horrific war | :07:30. | :07:37. | |
ever. But he also said... But why do we think that this war? Yes, the | :07:38. | :07:45. | |
experience. It is Blackadder, it is the Somme, but why do we say that it | :07:46. | :07:52. | |
is worse than any other thing? I suppose they were not in lines of | :07:53. | :07:55. | |
trenches but look at the levels of attrition in the American civil | :07:56. | :07:59. | |
war. It is not trivial to bring that out because the American papers have | :08:00. | :08:03. | |
been dealing with the 150th anniversary of the American civil | :08:04. | :08:06. | |
war, which took out somebody in almost every family. And very | :08:07. | :08:11. | |
intelligently as well. I didn't think that there has been real | :08:12. | :08:15. | |
thought put into these papers, how to balance it and how to give the | :08:16. | :08:19. | |
image. It is not celebratory in any way, which people had feared. But | :08:20. | :08:24. | |
how do you do the commemoration, particularly in view of you dies? We | :08:25. | :08:36. | |
have seen the images of the reconciliation between the European | :08:37. | :08:39. | |
leaders... Let's look at the Metro because that is a particular moment. | :08:40. | :08:43. | |
And in one way, one of the young members of the Royal family on the | :08:44. | :08:48. | |
front plate will appeal to some of the younger readers. It comes down | :08:49. | :08:53. | |
to in the end trying to get a very complicated series of not one event | :08:54. | :08:58. | |
but many others across using just one photograph. It boils down to | :08:59. | :09:01. | |
show business in the end and that is what the Duchess of Cambridge | :09:02. | :09:05. | |
represents. She represents a kind of a younger generation of Britain, a | :09:06. | :09:09. | |
hope for a future. She is a mother and all the rest of it. I could not | :09:10. | :09:16. | |
agree more. And she is used to say, oh, don't we feel dreadful. But she | :09:17. | :09:23. | |
is very pretty. If William had married a German princess, I don't | :09:24. | :09:27. | |
think she would be used in the same way. Then again, in 1917, the Royal | :09:28. | :09:34. | |
Family changed its name because they did not want to sound Germany any | :09:35. | :09:38. | |
more. This was one family that has spread its tentacles across Europe, | :09:39. | :09:42. | |
which then started fighting, the statesman paid into it, the | :09:43. | :09:47. | |
politicians got into it, busy telling these nations that they | :09:48. | :09:51. | |
needed to start fighting. And now we have politicians like David Cameron | :09:52. | :09:54. | |
and Michael Gove saying this was a justified sacrifice. 100 years on, | :09:55. | :09:59. | |
they are trying to justify the death of 17 million men stop I'm not there | :10:00. | :10:08. | |
is a way to do it. Another photograph of a member of the Royal | :10:09. | :10:12. | |
family. This is all incredibly important as well. And you think of | :10:13. | :10:16. | |
some of the surveys that came out on the last Remembrance Day. Many young | :10:17. | :10:21. | |
people were confused about what the Hoppy represented, why you had to | :10:22. | :10:26. | |
wear it, what war it was from. `` being poppy. Was it to remember | :10:27. | :10:32. | |
sacrifice or a piece? Images like this might draw in some of those | :10:33. | :10:38. | |
people. It is a good point. I'm slightly involved in all of this as | :10:39. | :10:48. | |
Commissioner of Commonwealth War Graves. And the issue with schools, | :10:49. | :10:54. | |
because it is on the curriculum, there is a great deal of interest. | :10:55. | :10:59. | |
And the interest index went right up but the basis of knowledge was, as | :11:00. | :11:05. | |
you say, astonishingly low. He is very interesting. I think that the | :11:06. | :11:11. | |
Royal family have orchestrated this very well and very subtly because | :11:12. | :11:15. | |
they are also sharing the load, the young royals, in doing the really | :11:16. | :11:20. | |
important commemoration is of the Second World War. Why are they | :11:21. | :11:28. | |
important? The last big ones were D`Day. It is the last time you will | :11:29. | :11:34. | |
have veterans who have real memories. They were saying to me | :11:35. | :11:40. | |
that they will not turn up again. He is quite extraordinary. With | :11:41. | :11:44. | |
veterans, he has his mother's touch. At Casino, you made it clear... | :11:45. | :11:52. | |
There were a lot of New Zealand fighters. They had a terrible time. | :11:53. | :11:57. | |
The veterans from New Zealand got a lot of stick. He made it clear to | :11:58. | :12:00. | |
every single veteran that if they wanted to talk to him, he would find | :12:01. | :12:04. | |
the time to talk to them full of the must have spoken with more than 200 | :12:05. | :12:08. | |
in the space of a few days. He is very important. We have seen the | :12:09. | :12:12. | |
three principles. Harry, his brother and his sister`in`law. And they will | :12:13. | :12:14. | |
be going Gallipoli. An image with the Archbishop of | :12:15. | :12:30. | |
Canterbury as well and there with the lanterns which have been the | :12:31. | :12:36. | |
focus of the this evening. Between these newspapers, coming back to the | :12:37. | :12:41. | |
reason why tabloids, the most successful newspapers, choose a | :12:42. | :12:44. | |
particular story on the front page, the Sun is generally read by young | :12:45. | :12:48. | |
men. They can identify more with Harry than anyone. He is a veteran, | :12:49. | :12:54. | |
a member of the military. The story they have got a letter he has | :12:55. | :12:59. | |
written, says, if we get bowled out there is nothing for it. They can | :13:00. | :13:06. | |
relate. Other newspapers comment on the officer class. Broadsheets speak | :13:07. | :13:13. | |
about David Cameron's uncle who was lost in the war. That isn't to say | :13:14. | :13:17. | |
an officer dying isn't worse than Tommy dying. It means that some | :13:18. | :13:22. | |
papers focus on the working`class element and others for the kind of | :13:23. | :13:27. | |
people of a class who made decisions at the time. The Daily Mail goes for | :13:28. | :13:33. | |
a younger man and woman and an older man, more family focused. Briefly, | :13:34. | :13:40. | |
let's look at the Independent, which always tries to be different. In | :13:41. | :13:45. | |
effect, the front page looks like it's turned off its own lights. It | :13:46. | :13:55. | |
is similar to the Mirror. The story of the unknown warrior is one of the | :13:56. | :14:02. | |
most moving parts. They easy and four bodies, perhaps Guardsmen, they | :14:03. | :14:08. | |
chose one at random, brought him home and buried him in Westminster | :14:09. | :14:18. | |
Abbey. It was an amazing thing. It was a catharsis. This is Sebastien | :14:19. | :14:29. | |
for a looks's paper, Birdsong `` Faulks. It is a deft touch. What I | :14:30. | :14:37. | |
do think though, speaking of the Unknown Warrior, such is the | :14:38. | :14:42. | |
technology today, if we were to start again, you could find out | :14:43. | :14:47. | |
exactly who it was. I went to the laboratory of the Dutch war dead, | :14:48. | :14:55. | |
who recover 40 Khedive as per year from World War II and they were | :14:56. | :14:59. | |
getting people from the Warwickshire Regiment and they could say that we | :15:00. | :15:06. | |
grew up on the borders of summer `` Somerset and so on. `` . I like the | :15:07. | :15:27. | |
argument between the poets, the correspondence and the public and | :15:28. | :15:33. | |
the posh historians, and the posh historians aren't having their own | :15:34. | :15:38. | |
way on this. Let's move on to the Guardian. They are doing something | :15:39. | :15:44. | |
clever, they have tried to make what happened to count for something that | :15:45. | :15:49. | |
is happening today, linking the conflict around us in the Middle | :15:50. | :15:55. | |
East and asking, well saving, we have had a century to count the cost | :15:56. | :16:02. | |
of war. For those who don't know, the end of the Foles toward war is | :16:03. | :16:05. | |
when Britain started occupying Palestine. It created a lot of what | :16:06. | :16:13. | |
we are looking at now with ISIS producing a caliphate. The | :16:14. | :16:21. | |
Guardian's copy comes down to celebrity. We have the historian, | :16:22. | :16:31. | |
Dan snow, no rating. You have got one particular relative of the | :16:32. | :16:35. | |
16`year`old who was scouted and shot, reading from his mother's | :16:36. | :16:39. | |
letter to the War office, asking for news of his son `` Dan Snow, | :16:40. | :16:48. | |
narrating. They are used as an afterthought, the Tommy, the average | :16:49. | :16:52. | |
person, is used to tail off at the end. The majority of the stories are | :16:53. | :16:59. | |
about celebrity, showbiz, someone from... There isn't any reason to | :17:00. | :17:05. | |
have that. When it becomes your sole focus, it takes the mood away. It | :17:06. | :17:12. | |
oversimplifies it. The times have been even bolder than the Guardian | :17:13. | :17:19. | |
and they have tried to bring the commemorations and make them more | :17:20. | :17:26. | |
relevant. A slender branch of hope. I couldn't find the hope in all of | :17:27. | :17:34. | |
this. The ceasefire that has been announced tonight. It is giving a | :17:35. | :17:43. | |
reflection of the mood in Glasgow. With the Commonwealth Games and the | :17:44. | :17:48. | |
service in the cathedral. As you say, quite rightly, he was trying to | :17:49. | :17:54. | |
look for the no more War message that he hopes will get through to | :17:55. | :17:58. | |
Gaza `` war. It will be very interesting. The bit I thought might | :17:59. | :18:06. | |
come up, which will come up soon, is the way, of course we will have | :18:07. | :18:14. | |
terrible things, but war changed by dimension in a huge degree and | :18:15. | :18:17. | |
someone did it today, I saw in an inside page, they had the nearest | :18:18. | :18:25. | |
thing to a biplane. By the end, it became a very big air war. On the | :18:26. | :18:33. | |
1st of April, 1918, you have the foundation of the RA at, the first | :18:34. | :18:39. | |
independent air force in the world `` RAF. This changes everything for | :18:40. | :18:47. | |
the worse because you get hundreds, thousands, millions of civilians. | :18:48. | :18:54. | |
Some of the things we have seen in Gaza to a great scale. It is very | :18:55. | :19:04. | |
difficult as you say, this enormous portmanteau of half memories, to | :19:05. | :19:07. | |
simplify and get a straight narrative. Do you think that we got | :19:08. | :19:15. | |
the coverage right? So many events and thoughts to mark. These are just | :19:16. | :19:22. | |
the front pages, this is a snapshot. You would have to read everything | :19:23. | :19:25. | |
and even then you would only have a snippet of what you have got. I | :19:26. | :19:29. | |
don't have the same optimism that after four years of going over the | :19:30. | :19:36. | |
anniversaries, that as a culture, we will have a better grasp of what the | :19:37. | :19:41. | |
First World War involved. We had a new RAF, we got new pilot, zips, | :19:42. | :19:50. | |
teabags, lots of things. Thank you for your thoughts and for taking us | :19:51. | :19:56. | |
through the papers for tomorrow. Thanks to you for joining us. | :19:57. | :20:07. | |
Thanks for tuning into the latest thoughts for the weather prospect | :20:08. | :20:12. | |
for the rest of the week, the weekend and beyond. There is | :20:13. | :20:18. | |
something interesting for the second half of the weekend, | :20:19. | :20:19. |