'No, No, No' Government to release digital footage of most iconic political speeches
THE Government is to digitise Betamax footage of some of the biggest political speeches of the last 30 years, including Margaret Thatcher’s famous: “No, no, no!” to a more centralised Europe, Geoffrey Howe’s stunning resignation speech and the 2003 Iraq War debate, writes Camilla Tominey.
Margaret Thatcher says 'no, no, no' to Europe
Parliament has tendered a contract to transfer 49,000 old-fashioned video tapes containing 90,000 hours of footage of the House of Commons and the Lords into a digital format, as well as storing them in a “secure, climate-controlled facility”.
The tender document points out that the video cassette archive is the “only complete collection of this material”.
The 48-month contract is worth £1million excluding VAT.
The moves comes after Sony stopped making Betamax tapes in March, 40 years after the video system was launched in Japan.
The Government are to digitise some of politics most famous speeches over the past 30 years
Although soon superseded by rival VHS, Westminster officials have spent decades recording parliamentary proceedings on to the 1970s system, and have only just started moving onto digital.
Betamax was launched in 1975, a year before JVC’s rival the VHS cassette.
Margaret Thatcher's famous 'No, No, No' speech will be digitalised
But the JVC product soon won the battle to become the market leader.
In November 2015 Sony announced that it would stop selling the tapes in the spring of 2016.
The House of Lords first televised footage of peers’ proceedings in 1985. It was another four years before the Commons followed suit.
Geoffrey Howe's famous 1990 resignation speech will also be turned into a digital format
Recordings in the vast archive include some of the biggest political speeches of the past three decades.