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CNN Live At Daybreak
Euro Edition: Morning Papers
Aired February 06, 2004 - 05:46 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Right now, though, it's time to check on what's making headlines overseas in this morning's 'Euro Edition.' Let's head live to London and Tony Campion.
Good morning -- Tony.
TONY CAMPION, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hello again, Carol.
I'll tell you what's the big one today, how often do you get a call from the opposition leader to the prime minister in Britain to resign? Well that's what we've got. Michael Howard has said that Tony Blair should step down, get out of his job, quit over the whole Iraq business.
What's at the center of this is the -- you know the famous 45- minute claim? It gets kind of complicated, but it is so important. Yesterday I was talking about the fact that when a dossier was compiled, Mr. Blair says he didn't know that the threat that Saddam Hussein could allegedly launch weapons of mass destruction within 45 minutes only referred to battlefield munitions and not to longer-range munitions. And you know we've got the newspapers all over it today.
I mean here is the front page of the "Daily Mail," we now know, it says, that on the 45-minute claim Mr. Blair has either behaved like a fool or told an untruth. Which is it? You know it gets kind of complicated, because let's just take a look at one of the other papers.
Here's the "Daily Mirror," and you can see the front page here, it says liar or idiot. Now that's not Mr. Blair it's talking about. This is a picture of Geoff Hoon. He is the defense secretary. And you know the big question is he says that he did know that the 45- minute claim was only about battlefield munitions. Did he tell his boss? If not, why not? That's the idiot bit. You know the questions will go on. They are yet to be answered.
But of course you know the opposition is all over this. The new leader of the Torys, Michael Howard, very skilled orator, trained as a barrister, as is Tony Blair, both of them very good at shredding the other one to bits. But the difficulty is, of course, he's very good to shred the guy who is in charge to bits.
It's very difficult to use those same skills to defend a decision that you took, you know, what is it 10 months ago now that the debate to take Britain into war took place in March 2003. Very difficult to use those same skills to defend yourself against this, tough call for Tony Blair, tough set of circumstances to have to deal with. COSTELLO: Well I'm sure President Bush can feel his pain. It's amazing how closely your news mirrors our.
CAMPION: Absolutely.
COSTELLO: Another thing that's interesting, reality TV. It's such a big thing in Britain, too, and it's all over the front pages, too, today.
CAMPION: Yes, that's right. I mean we have had -- there's this show going on and I think this is probably what you are talking about. It's called "I'm a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here." And you know what it is, you get a bunch of B list celebrities and you bung them all in the jungle. Actually, they are in Australia because that's the cheapest bit of jungle they could find or something or the most easily accessible. I don't know.
And basically you just expose them on TV to make fools of themselves, as they will, and you kind of vote them off one by one. You know how it goes. And I mean, actually it's kind of interesting. We've only actually -- this is on "The Sun," and this is Jordan (ph). She's a model, famous here. She is on the front page today.
Let you in on a couple of papers perhaps interest waning very slightly, I don't know. But I mean the whole -- the whole thing for me isn't so much "I'm a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here." It's I'm a nobody, get me on TV. I mean so many of these people are, you know, famous maybe 10, 20 years ago. You just wonder what they think they are going to get from it now...
COSTELLO: Well you know, Tony, what happened, we always thought Britain TV was so much smarter than American TV, but it seems to be diminishing somewhat.
CAMPION: I'm not going to comment on whether that was ever true, but certainly I think you know the purists would say that the standards are slipping. That much is certainly fair.
COSTELLO: All right. Tony Campion live from London this morning.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
Aired February 6, 2004 - 05:46 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Right now, though, it's time to check on what's making headlines overseas in this morning's 'Euro Edition.' Let's head live to London and Tony Campion.
Good morning -- Tony.
TONY CAMPION, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hello again, Carol.
I'll tell you what's the big one today, how often do you get a call from the opposition leader to the prime minister in Britain to resign? Well that's what we've got. Michael Howard has said that Tony Blair should step down, get out of his job, quit over the whole Iraq business.
What's at the center of this is the -- you know the famous 45- minute claim? It gets kind of complicated, but it is so important. Yesterday I was talking about the fact that when a dossier was compiled, Mr. Blair says he didn't know that the threat that Saddam Hussein could allegedly launch weapons of mass destruction within 45 minutes only referred to battlefield munitions and not to longer-range munitions. And you know we've got the newspapers all over it today.
I mean here is the front page of the "Daily Mail," we now know, it says, that on the 45-minute claim Mr. Blair has either behaved like a fool or told an untruth. Which is it? You know it gets kind of complicated, because let's just take a look at one of the other papers.
Here's the "Daily Mirror," and you can see the front page here, it says liar or idiot. Now that's not Mr. Blair it's talking about. This is a picture of Geoff Hoon. He is the defense secretary. And you know the big question is he says that he did know that the 45- minute claim was only about battlefield munitions. Did he tell his boss? If not, why not? That's the idiot bit. You know the questions will go on. They are yet to be answered.
But of course you know the opposition is all over this. The new leader of the Torys, Michael Howard, very skilled orator, trained as a barrister, as is Tony Blair, both of them very good at shredding the other one to bits. But the difficulty is, of course, he's very good to shred the guy who is in charge to bits.
It's very difficult to use those same skills to defend a decision that you took, you know, what is it 10 months ago now that the debate to take Britain into war took place in March 2003. Very difficult to use those same skills to defend yourself against this, tough call for Tony Blair, tough set of circumstances to have to deal with. COSTELLO: Well I'm sure President Bush can feel his pain. It's amazing how closely your news mirrors our.
CAMPION: Absolutely.
COSTELLO: Another thing that's interesting, reality TV. It's such a big thing in Britain, too, and it's all over the front pages, too, today.
CAMPION: Yes, that's right. I mean we have had -- there's this show going on and I think this is probably what you are talking about. It's called "I'm a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here." And you know what it is, you get a bunch of B list celebrities and you bung them all in the jungle. Actually, they are in Australia because that's the cheapest bit of jungle they could find or something or the most easily accessible. I don't know.
And basically you just expose them on TV to make fools of themselves, as they will, and you kind of vote them off one by one. You know how it goes. And I mean, actually it's kind of interesting. We've only actually -- this is on "The Sun," and this is Jordan (ph). She's a model, famous here. She is on the front page today.
Let you in on a couple of papers perhaps interest waning very slightly, I don't know. But I mean the whole -- the whole thing for me isn't so much "I'm a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here." It's I'm a nobody, get me on TV. I mean so many of these people are, you know, famous maybe 10, 20 years ago. You just wonder what they think they are going to get from it now...
COSTELLO: Well you know, Tony, what happened, we always thought Britain TV was so much smarter than American TV, but it seems to be diminishing somewhat.
CAMPION: I'm not going to comment on whether that was ever true, but certainly I think you know the purists would say that the standards are slipping. That much is certainly fair.
COSTELLO: All right. Tony Campion live from London this morning.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
