BRITISH HISTORY’S BIGGEST FIBS, BBC4, 9pm
I FIND Lucy Worsley almost unbearable but the subject here was too big to miss, so I endured her little-girl style of presentation and her tedious dressing-up box.
Underneath the frills her series is actually quite valuable, showing that much of British history presents an “edited and “deceitful” version of events, and tonight she examines the “fibs” which propped up the glittering image of the British Raj.
Britain regarded India as “the jewel in the crown” but left much of its governing to the East India Company whose main interest was the accrual of wealth. But when Victoria was made Empress of India it showed Britain was “cooking up a new imperial vision”. Creating her as Empress was a project to make the Empire seem less about plunder and more about a kindly civilising mission to bring decent Victorian values to India. The Empire cynically appointed a kindly mother-figure rather than endless money-men and bureaucrats.
AFTER BREXIT: THE BATTLE FOR EUROPE, BBC2, 9pm
THESE days I often grumble that I’m tired of hearing about Brexit; then I sit down and read an article or watch a documentary like this and get furious all over again. No, the subject has not yet tired me out.
This film goes beyond Britain’s current shuffling, pathetic, meandering debates about Article 50 to look at the wider Continent and ask whether the EU itself can survive. The rise of the populist right and the migrant crisis means that, for the EU, Brexit is just “one crisis of many”.
Katya Adler goes to Italy to witness the adulation for the motorcycle-riding leader of the Five Star movement: “Everyone wants to touch him! Everyone wants to kiss him!” Then she goes on to Hungary and France where populist leaders like Viktor Orban and Marine le Pen are leading revolts against Brussels.
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