'Inside Europe: 10 Years of Turmoil' is entertaining, but hugely limited

In 1991, Norma Percy made the first of her distinctive TV series, The Second Russian Revolution . It established an extremely successful format. She and her colleagues interviewed all the people involved in making the big decisions which led to the collapse of The Soviet Union. These well researched interviews were inter-cut with archive film, stills and some specially shot footage. It was a kind of TV version of Bob Woodward’s books about contemporary history: talk to the people who were in the room when Big History was made.

This established the template. Over nearly thirty years, Percy, together with Brian Lapping, made a number of series, from Watergate (1994) and The Death of Yugoslavia (1995) to The Iraq War (2013) and Inside Obama’s White House (2013). Now comes her latest series, Inside Europe: Ten Years of Turmoil (BBC 2). What does this tell us about the successes and failures of this documentary format?

Part of Percy’s success is a question of timing. She and Lapping have always gone for big subjects, and the last thirty years have seen plenty of big historical moments which divided and resonated in equal measure. Great figures like Gorbachev, Obama, Saddam and Putin. Dramatic stories from Watergate and the fall of Soviet Communism, to the civil war in Yugoslavia and the Iraq War.

Percy and her superb teams of researchers have once again managed to interview the big names about Brexit. In this first episode of Inside Europe there are interviews with Cameron, Osborne and William Hague, Juncker, Tusk and Hollande. Some of the stories are electric. Tusk recalls talking to Cameron about his decision to go for a referendum: “Why did you decide on this referendum? It’s so dangerous, so even stupid… I was really amazed and even shocked.” Hollande recalls his advice to Cameron at Chequers: “This was not the first time that a commitment made at an election had not been kept afterwards.” Hague advised Cameron to go for a referendum. Osborne was more cautious. Or so he says now.

The cast is so good that it’s easy to forget who isn’t there. No Theresa May. Indeed, no one from today’s Cabinet. In fact, only Cameron, Osborne, Clegg and Hague from the Cabinet of then. What did Philip Hammond think? Or Johnson and Gove? Or those wise owls, David Willetts and Oliver Letwin? Or the young Matt Hancock and Jeremy Hunt? Of course, viewers have to do some work. 

It’s the same with the Europeans. Lots of Sarkozy and Hollande, but no Merkel, and only one leader from central or east Europe. The result, as ever, is a bias towards Paris and Brussels. Sarkozy and Hollande do not come across well. Yesterday’s men. Unpopular in their own country.

What does come across well is how isolated Cameron was in Europe, just as May is today. “He [Cameron] was really isolated”, says Rampuy. “Britain was out in the cold,” says the narrator. On the crucial votes in Brussels, Cameron was always outnumbered. This is underlined by the use of archive, brilliantly tracked down by the doyen of film research, Declan Smith. 

There is a shot of Cameron, Osborne, Danny Alexander and Nick Clegg seated round a table. It’s only a few years ago, but what’s happened to them? They have all left politics. One minute they are deciding Britain’s future in Europe, and now? It’s deftly done.

But has the series got the story right? It tells a straightforward chronological account – meat and two veg kind of history. Lots about tabloids and backbenchers. Surprisingly little about UKIP in the run-up to the referendum, or about the referendum itself (or the 2015 Election).

It’s the absences, though, which are unsettling. Not a single Labour politician interviewed. Carswell is the only UKIP politician who gets airtime. A single passing reference to the Scottish Referendum.

But the real weakness of the Percy/Lapping approach is the absence of context and background. For example, the Conservatives have been weak and divided since Thatcher. Cameron and May are just the latest in a series of weak leaders which goes back almost thirty years. During that time they haven’t won a single sizeable electoral victory. Percy and Lapping don’t believe on interviewing historians. You long for someone like Peter Hennessy, Steve Richards or Andrew Roberts to give some proper background.

And what about Labour? Nothing at all. No Ed Miliband, or Gordon Brown. No one from the SNP. What about the big issues of those years? Immigration and the financial crash? The austerity of the Osborne years? All barely mentioned. And who voted to leave or to Remain? Nothing. Why was it only Britain that seemed so preoccupied with east European migrants? Did migration bother the Germans or the Italians? We are never told.

I am glad to know that Hague and Cameron had pizza in Chicago and that Cameron showed Hollande various historical memorabilia from Napoleon at Chequers, but that is trivial compared to these big historical issues.

This is basically Great Man history. Or, in this case, Little Man history. Cameron comes across badly, someone out of his depth, unable to deal with Brussels and the Eurocrats. Was he badly advised as well? Craig Oliver and Gabby Bertin seemed hopeless, but so did Ivan Rogers and Peter Ricketts. No one on the British side seemed to know how to deal with the “swivel-eyed loons”, or the tabloids. The referendum campaign was disastrous. Whose fault was that?

But then we know Sarkozy and Hollande were equally hopeless. Who is to say the tabloids are to right about Juncker? Merkel’s advisors come across as grey men in impressive glasses.

Finally, there is the BBC view. Percy’s series on Obama was fawning and full of liberal admiration. Conversely, Cameron (and I predict the same will be true of May) come out badly here. The BBC can’t bear to put out a series which says UKIP or Eurosceptics might have had a point.

It will be interesting to see how the remaining two episodes fare with the May years. Will there be any surprises? I predict not. But it hardly matters. There has already been the fawning interview on Today and a gushing profile in The Times . This kind of history needs to be treated critically. Big History needs arguments and ideas as well as anecdotes about pizza.