14 Responses to It’s the way you tell them.

  1. Pete_London says:
    March 25, 2005 at 10:00 am

    O/T

    Apologies if others have picked this up. At the moment the headline story at BBC News Online is ‘Tory resigns over taped remarks’.

    Regulars will know why I mention it.

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  2. ed says:
    March 25, 2005 at 11:32 am

    That the BBC feels that they need to mention the private ownership of any organisation viewed in a negative light as the result of a story suggests that they don’t regard the arguments of old socialism as being as irrelevant as the vast majority of people feel they are. It’s so out-of-touch it grates.

    Ps. Andrew, I just posted above as I couldn’t contain myself vis-a-vis the stupid journalism in evidence. No reflection on this or your previous post, which are both excellent.

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  3. Peter says:
    March 25, 2005 at 12:05 pm

    How about investigating corruption, waste, bureacracy, nepotism etc at those two beloved organisations (by the BBC that is) the EU and the UN?

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  4. Michael Gill says:
    March 25, 2005 at 12:40 pm

    Wakefield Prison appears to be a Government-run institution:

    http://www.hmprisonservice.gov.uk/prisoninformation/locateaprison/prison.asp?id=477,15,2,15,477,0

    Strange how its status didn’t warrant mentioning by the Beeb (even in passing) after Harold Shipman commited suicide there:

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/3391871.stm

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  5. JohninLondon says:
    March 25, 2005 at 3:13 pm

    Isn’t Feltham, where juveniles often commit suicide in spite of attempts to prevent it, a Home Office facility ?

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  6. Lee says:
    March 25, 2005 at 4:08 pm

    Yes Feltham is government run, there is a Director General of the Prison service and the guards have their own union – the Prison Officers Association (POA). It is unbelievable to read of the blunders that have been made there:

    -The Feltham prison officers put an Asian inmate in the same cell as a white supremacist. The Asian inmate was tragically beaten to death.

    -The Feltham POA members knew that the offender was racist because they had intercepted some of his letters. He had a history of violence and racism. (The photographs also show him with a cross tattooed on his head)

    -One POA member accused other officers of

    ‘deliberately put the 19-year-old in a cell with the violent racist in a game known as “Gladiator” or “Colosseum”, in which inmates who might attack each other were put together while staff bet on the outcome.’
    http://www.guardian.co.uk/prisons/story/0,7369,1430293,00.html
    The ex POA member made these claims because ‘He was so concerned that the union would do nothing that he made an anonymous call to the Commission for Racial Equality’
    http://www.guardian.co.uk/prisons/story/0,7369,1435958,00.html

    – The POA members were accused of being racist:
    ‘The Prison Service’s first race equality adviser told the inquiry into the killing of the Asian teenager Zahid Mubarek yesterday that racism was rife at Feltham young offender institution.

    -The prison patrol sheets that detail what checks were carried out by whom on the eve of the murder have ‘gone missing’,

    – The attack was spotted in progress and could probably have been stopped, but the prison officer panicked

    could ‘Prison officer Malcolm Nicholson panicked and failed to follow procedures when he peered into the cell and saw 19-year-old Zahid Mubarek still alive with his killer Robert Stewart standing over him holding a weapon. Instead of using his radio or sounding a nearby alarm to alert other officers, Mr Nicholson ran to his office to phone for help, leading to a delay of four minutes in which Stewart could have continued the assault and medical assistance was delayed.’
    http://society.guardian.co.uk/youthjustice/story/0,11982,1378752,00.html

    – There had been a racist attack just weeks before the murder.
    ‘An Asian teenager was badly beaten in a racist attack and left without treatment for 24 hours at Feltham young offenders institution just weeks before the murder of another Muslim youth, an inquiry heard yesterday.

    Still at least its not ‘private’, because private prisons are obviously more incompetent than public sector organisations. Just as private sector media organisations are less competent than the BBC?

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  7. Robin says:
    March 25, 2005 at 7:14 pm

    Afly on the wall documentary about how the BBC and Dept of Culture discussed the BBCs charter and funding,where they met,what lunches they had together.And another one on the private company TV Licencing would be nice.

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  8. JohninLondon says:
    March 25, 2005 at 10:58 pm

    Robin

    It is called “agency capture”. A well-known feature of relations between large organisations like the BBC and the Ministers and officials they are supposed to be controlling. Check it out on google !

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  9. Bradley Cheal says:
    March 26, 2005 at 2:28 pm

    First rate site! With reference to possible public organisations the BBC could investigate (and in doing so finally be of some help to us) may I humbly suggest the Royal Mail? I make no attempt to hide the fact that I have just returned with my parcel from the sorting office. My parcel was rejected for weighing 20.03Kg which is over their maximum by 30g aka 1 oz aka 0.15 percent. Can they even weigh this accurately? The attitude of the staff did not help at all. Just one rotten apple? No. Took it somewhere else (where I saw the scales) and they said the same. Now it is Saturday and they are all closed. I asked who could take my parcel. They refused to suggest anyone. A private company wouldn’t behave like this.

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  10. Karen and Paul Lysley says:
    March 27, 2005 at 8:56 pm

    reference your remarks re hanging in rye hill of michael bailey. Having had communication with him in recent days he was intimidated and frightened . he seems to have changed rapidly (within 10 days) from a young man looking forward to his release with enthusiasm and a determination to steer clear of trouble, to a frightened and threatened young man. Our questions would be , Why was he plaiced in a cell with a ‘convenient’ hook on the door and strong shoe laces if he was on suicide watch? Why was he held in solitary confinement for an un reasonable amount of time time. We have letters to prove he was being bullied and verbal evidence that he was being tortured to bring him to a state of desperation. we urge to to look at this case further

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  11. espresso says:
    March 28, 2005 at 11:02 am

    I’m assuming there was a case of PC filtering going on here when you wrote…

    Religious worship & teaching – what’s really being said in private in Britain’s churches, mosques, temples and synagogues? Do they all honestly promote community cohesion? Or are there instances of hate-speech and indoctrination?

    As far as I know, there’s only ONE of these buildings being used to forment hate… and it most certainalY is NOT the churches and the synagogues. Guess which?

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  12. Joe N. says:
    March 29, 2005 at 2:50 pm

    The irony of all this recreational compassion can be found in France – the prison suicide rate far exceeds the US rate of suicides + executions + prison murders….

    Quite telling, no?

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  13. Monkey says:
    March 29, 2005 at 2:53 pm

    What about an investigation into corruption at the EU?

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  14. emily bettles says:
    August 5, 2005 at 6:30 pm

    Michael Bailey would still be alive today if he wasn’t in a privately run prison he wasnt supposed to be there and he shouldnt have died he should be here be with those who love him his treatment in rye hill was beyond belief worst than that of an animal it should be closed and those responsible held accountable

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