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DERMOT MURNAGHAN: Now then, too few teachers are being trained in how to teach about the Holocaust, that’s the finding of a new report from MPs which says that the government should step in to make sure that education about the genocide does not become patchy, it says.  Earlier this month the Education Secretary said learning about the atrocities can help protect children against extremism.  Well I am joined now by the government’s special envoy on post-holocaust issues, Sir Eric Pickles, he was of course the Communities Secretary until last May, a very good morning to you Sir Eric.  One would have thought, not looking into this in detail, with even the amount of stuff that’s on television, school trips to the camps, that this still is quite a pertinent issue but the report thinks otherwise.

SIR ERIC PICKLES:  It is very much a pertinent issue and I suspect the amount of holocaust education that kids are getting now is more than what you or I received when we were at school.  I gave evidence to this particular inquiry but people like UCL have done some terrific research and do a lot of work in terms of getting teachers up to speed and understanding, a lot of this is taught sometimes in history, sometimes in religious education, sometimes in citizenship so it is important, particularly now, this decade, where people who actually were eye-witnesses to these atrocities by the nature of things are going to be no longer with us.  

DM: But the importance is of course not just in remembering, it’s about the lessons for today, forces in society, forces in the world, some of them can lead to genocide.

SIR ERIC PICKLES: Well absolutely, one would have thought that this would have been a big game changer but as time goes on there are those who deny it, there are those who deny other holocausts – last year was the 20th anniversary of the murder of all those Muslims in Srebrenica, I put out an innocent Tweet and was absolutely mobbed by people who said it didn’t happen, it wasn’t the case. If there is anything that is well-documented, it’s that and it is very important because it was the full panoply of the state systematically working out the murder of Jews, of gay people, of those of Roma extraction, of people on the left of politics and it was a systematic process of stripping them of their properties, stripping them of their dignity, getting rid of them and trying to pretend they didn’t exist.

DM: One aspect of it, and let’s bring it up to the present day, we’ve been discussing it this morning, was the Kinder Transport, the young Jews that were taken in by the United Kingdom and other countries to save them from those atrocities.  We’re hearing today that the government, the Prime Minister, is being pressured to take 3000 children from Syria, from Afghanistan, is an announcement imminent on this?

SIR ERIC PICKLES:  I don't know if that is true or not, I certainly did stand up in the House of Commons in the summer and suggest we might consider this.  I think it is important that we really don’t get too far away from the reality of the Kinder Transport, it was fundamentally different.  The last Kinder Transport set off at the beginning of September 1939 and was stopped and of the children on that train only two survived, the rest went to the death camps and were liquidated.  It’s a similar kind of … it’s a social problem but let’s not get too close in drawing the analogy.  There are parallels but it’s not the same thing though I am personally very sympathetic to the idea of unaccompanied children being allowed …

DM: They are unaccompanied children, that’s as far as we’ll go with the parallel but nevertheless you are personally sympathetic to that and that would be on top of the 20,000 people we are taking from the camps?

SIR ERIC PICKLES:  Well I did stand up in the House of Commons and say exactly that and that remains my view.

DM: Okay, another lesson from history, I was interested to hear you talk just the other day about an incident which took place at was it St Mary’s College in London when there was an attempt to have a meeting there about peace funnily enough and it was attacked and you drew parallels with Kristallnacht.

SIR ERIC PICKLES: Well I think it’s just unfortunate.  You’ve got a situation where a bunch of people were gathered, they were listening to a speaker who wanted to talk about how peace was going to be possible in the Middle East and a bunch of Palestinian activists come in, smash the windows, smash glass, it just seemed to me if there is one thing you shouldn’t do in anti-Jewish protests is smash glass, it’s just ludicrous.  

DM: But does this tell us wider issues that feed into that debate about particularly university campuses about who is and isn’t allowed to speak?

SIR ERIC PICKLES:  Yes, well I think it is important that Muslim students and Jewish students and people from different religions should feel absolutely safe in that environment and there is a degree of anti-Semitism on the rise and there is a dreadful business where people are conflating being Jewish with Israeli foreign policy and expecting Jewish people to be responsible for what Israel is doing.

DM: Now you are writing in the Sun on Sunday today about the European Union and making it very clear you are no particular friend of the European Union but you are on the Prime Minister’s side clearly in terms of the negotiations but you say hatred of the EU and love of Britain are not the same thing.  You pretty much do hate the EU but Britain should vote anyway to stay in?

SIR ERIC PICKLES:  Well I’m not a massive fan and I don't think I’d arrive in Britain and lots of bureaucrats would go ‘Whoopee, Eric’s arrived’ but the truth is I’ve got a lot of friends in the opposite camp but what I really want to know is would we be materially better off outside?  And nobody has produced a shred of evidence to suggest that.  I think it would be a very risky thing, I think the Prime Minister is right to get the reforms that he does and if he succeeds, if the total package is there, then I’ll be right with him.

DM: But do you think that attitude, and it’s a cold hard look at the financial and economic facts as you say there, almost cynical perhaps from the UK’s point of view might be termed from some of European partners at the moment, do you think that is a good negotiating strategy in that the people who we are going to ask for concessions from are going to say you are just in it for yourselves?

SIR ERIC PICKLES:  Well I’m a great believer in Britain, I’m a great believer in doing things that are good for the United Kingdom and I think there are a lot of people who are in the European Union who think similar, that it would be a good thing for the Commission to be less ambitious in terms of a super state.  I think it’s important to understand that there are going to be currencies inside the European Union that are not in the euro and we need to have a proper balance and understanding that we don’t want ever closer union but in terms of the single market, in terms of all things that go with that, we would be tremendously affected by it outside and I think it’s better to have some control inside than to go out providing the Prime Minister comes back with a good deal.

DM: All right, there’s that proviso but how do you think, Sir Eric, the Prime Minister is handling the party management?  We all know, we’ve talked many times in the past about the damage that can be caused and the risks within the Conservative party about Europe going back so far, but this report on the front page of the Sunday Telegraph today saying that round about 40 Conservative MPs want to go and make their feelings known to the Prime Minister, he’s refusing to see them and the report says  he is back to his Flashman self, he’s arrogant.

SIR ERIC PICKLES:   Well the Prime Minister can organise his own diary, he doesn’t need my advice to but I think it is fair to say that there are a number of folks who have made their mind up and it wouldn’t matter what the Prime Minster came back with, they wouldn’t regard it as being adequate.  What I think is very important is that after the election that we all come together.  There are really good friends of mine who hold completely opposite opinions, they are good Conservatives, there are things we need to do for this country so the important thing is we’ll have a referendum that people will be able to decide and what the people decide we’re all going to accept.

DM: And what has Sir Eric decided, just to be crystal clear about this?  You are more or less saying that if the Prime Minister gets more or less what he wants, I’m in.  

SIR ERIC PICKLES:  Yes, I think that’s fairly reasonable.  He’s offered a package of measures, I’ll look very carefully at the package of measures, he’s got a good track record, he was one of the first to offer effective veto, he’s managed to bring things back, he’s been a good negotiator.  I worked with him closely for nigh on ten years and I know he’s a guy who will deliver.

DM: And are you hearing it is more or less in the bag?

SIR ERIC PICKLES: Ah, I’ve no idea, I’m just a voter.   

DM: Well a bit more than that!  Sir Eric Pickles, very good to see you, thank you very much indeed.