Prince Charles’ communications with government have been published after a freedom of information request from the Guardian which reports…
The Guardian editor-in-chief, Alan Rusbridger, said: “We fought this case because we believed – and the most senior judges in the country agreed – that the royal family should operate to the same degrees of transparency as anyone else trying to make their influence felt in public life.
If the criteria is one of trying to influence public life……
I wonder if they will be pursuing the BBC with equal vigour to find out the contents of all its communications with government…especially as the BBC is so ‘right wing’.
Will they be demanding to see a transcript of the secret meetings held recently between the BBC and Muslim activists who were demanding that the BBC change how it reports on any events in which Muslims are involved?
Will they be demanding the release of all communications concerning climate change that have passed between the BBC, climate activists, the UEA and government?
Will they be demanding the release of all communications that the BBC has had with the Home Office concerning how it reports on immigration or the EDL or Muslim terrorism?
If not why not? The BBC is far more influential than the prince could ever hope to be…so shouldn’t there be complete transparency in relation to who it talks to and what is said between them?
Yes, the Guardian and BBC.
Those two great bastions of freedom and “free speech”.
Erm, unless it’s something called The Balen Report……
Or in relation to Musilm terrorists…….
Or Jimmy Savile……
…or just about any complaint to CECUTT.
Or just about any question via FoI.
Why is the Guardian so not concerned about the media droite du seigneur of default exemption ‘for the purposes of jounalism, art or literature’ on legitimate questions?
Maybe we should inundate the McBBC with FOI’s for the above. After all, what’s good for the goose and all that….
I don’t like this mania now to have access to every conversation, letter, email, etc. that take place between anyone associated with govenment or power throughout the world. I believe some communications should be secret, it is the only way national & international diplomatic wheels can turn smoothly.
Secrecy in the governance of the country should only be when security, defence or diplomacy is involved . Otherwise every communication should be open to the public.
I’d interested to find out just WHY miliband was having a meeting with the BBC and in particular the weaponisation of the NHS…..
It needs to be noted and internalised of course that the Rusbidgers of the world are simply not required to address any questions concerning their unequal application of their “principles”.
We are just ignored.
It all stinks.
The demented republican idiots at the Grauniad have just scored 28 classic own goals. Let the cry of “Albatross” ring forth !
Surely the opacity of the BBC is one area that Mr Whittingdale can act on with ease. He can make the BBC fully comply with FOI requests in a prompt manner eg within 3 months of receipt. He could also insist that they publish in full any complaints they receive and the answer that they gave. Furthermore, he could force the BBC to publish minutes of any meeting or phone calls that they had with lobbyists, news agencies or political parties within 3 months of their occurrence. In other words he could make this body, which we all pay for, fully transparent so we can see what is going on and then we can hold it to account. How can anyone object to that ! After all what is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.
Agreed: I would be interested to know:
– Who were the senior BBC executives that Miliband had meetings with in November?
– What was the purpose of the meeting?
– What was the outcome?
It certainly seemed to me that the BBC stepped up their exposure of Labour policy after that and repeatedly gave Labour politicians an increased platform from which to attack the government.
Andy Burnham, for example was hardly away from the BBC microphones in the weeks leading up to Xmas and into the new Year, helpfully assisted by the BBC’s NHS Watch site, which encouraged people to see just how badly the NHS was doing in their area.
Given the size of their web-site perhaps there isn’t the disk space for the volume of documents required to publish every complaint … 😉
Seriously though, there would be some privacy issues but they could get round that by not publishing the names and addresses of people complaining about left wing bias. Of course if they did publish it would be an opportunity to invest in companies selling spray paint removal tools and window glass .
Win-Win really …
To continue on the NHS ‘weaponisation’ …would this be a suitable case for a FOI request?
How can ‘we’ do this?
Any ideas/advice please?
I’m sure many on here will recall the Guardian’s efforts to dish the dirt on Sarah Palin’s e-mails. Asking their loyal readers to volunteer to help, only to fall flat on their face.
What Charles correspondence has revealed has probably resulted in completely the opposite of what the Guardian tried to do to undermine him in the public’s opinion.
Now something for the Guardian to get its teeth into. Getting a mole to drop a copy of the Balen report into their lap and tell us what it says!