What induced ten LSE post-graduate students to make a ‘study trip’ to North Korea? Was it the cuisine, the wine, the scenery, the nightlife? The prospect of making new friends?
Or to see what Britain might have looked like, had Arthur Scargill and Tony Benn won the class war?
No matter. They travelled, and glimpsed a demented totalitarian socialist state. But they came safe home again only by the mercy of providence.
As part of the group, masquerading as students, there was a three-man team from BBC TV’s Panorama, who shot a film while on the trip that was shown last night.
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Enlarge As part of the group masquerading as students, there was a three-man team from BBC TV's Panorama who shot a film while on the trip that was shown last night. Reporter John Sweeney pictured in North KoreaHad this TV crew been unmasked, at best, the students would have been bundled out of North Korea.
More likely, however, in the present state of nuclear confrontation between the Pyongyang regime and the West, they would all have been thrown in jail, perhaps for months.
This has been the fate of several visitors in recent years.
It appears the students were told of the BBC team’s presence only in Beijing, en route to Korea. There is still argument about exactly who knew what when, but it seems certain that the London School of Economics, which lent its name to the trip, knew nothing of the undercover TV operation until it was over.
More... Students on BBC's North Korea trip 'have received threats' from rogue state as Corporation says decision to go ahead with Panorama film 'went right to the top' Kim Jong-Un makes first public appearance in two weeks for visit to grandfather's tomb as U.S. offers to be 'ready partners' if rogue state halts nuclear programme 'I saw my first execution at SEVEN': North Korean defector reveals ordeal of growing up in dictatorship where famine was so bad the streets were lined with dead bodiesIt is unlikely that the tour party understood the grave risks they ran for the greater glory of Panorama.
If one of my children had been among the students in the North Korean party, I would have been outside Broadcasting House this week demanding blood.
The upshot of all this is that the LSE’s chairman accuses the BBC of gross irresponsibility. For its part, the Corporation remains defiant, claiming that its actions were ‘strongly in the public interest’.
In the eyes of many people, those in charge at Broadcasting House have once more laid bare their paucity of judgment.
