BBC lost on the road to Maastricht

Time Magazine - at the time of the Single European Act

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Two weeks ago, when Christoper Booker wrote about Forging the Union, Radio 4's history of the EU, he had no intention had no intention of returning to it. But last week's instalment was such atravesty, riddled with factual errors, says Booker it calls for further comment. Below is extracted from today's Telegraph.

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With the aid of such luminaries as Geoffrey Howe and Jacques Delors, thisepisode covered the years of Margaret Thatcher's premiership, during which by far the most important development was the relaunching of the drive towards European integration by the Italian Euro-MP Altiero Spinelli (after whom, inconsequence, the largest building in the Brussels European Parliament is named).

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In 1984, Spinelli's Draft Treaty on European Union, including everything from asingle currency to a common foreign and defence policy, was accepted byPresident Mitterrand and other leaders.

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But it was agreed that such an ambitiousleap forward required not one but two new treaties, which would be the Single European Act and the Maastricht Treaty on European Union.The one real obstacle was Mrs Thatcher, who was only keen to see further stepstowards completing the Common Market, which she did not consider needed a newtreaty. At the 1985 Milan Council, she was therefore famously outwitted andoutvoted.

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Thatcher got her "single market", but the price was the setting in train ofthat integration process which would lead to Maastricht.

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Of this astonishing story, the BBC told us almost nothing. We had a tired,one-dimensional account of how Mrs Thatcher inspired the single market, how shemade her "bitter" Bruges speech and fell out with Mr Delors, until for reasonslargely unexplained "Europe" somehow led to her downfall.

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It is bizarre that the BBC should present such a misleading account of this important chapter in ourhistory, when the real story is so much more interesting.

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Alas, the corporation's mindset is so firmly clenched on a particular view of anything to do with "Europe" that this seems to drive its (not very demanding) professional standards right out of the window.