tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-82866716197534538732024-03-12T21:01:53.240-07:00Mike Glover's Media BlogMike Gloverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13884064052787404854noreply@blogger.comBlogger83125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8286671619753453873.post-59918721347843445812022-05-31T02:27:00.000-07:002022-05-31T02:27:09.759-07:00Sanctuary stopping places for travellersTRAVELLING communities are to be offered safe havens for their caravans on church land.
The move is a response to a critical nationwide shortage of sites and new legislation designed to give police new powers to move on encampments on unregistered land.
A pilot scheme, agreed unanimously by Durham’s Diocesan Synod, is the first of its kind in the country.
And it is hoped that “sanctuary stopping places” will be rolled out across the country.
The Church of England General Synod passed a resolution in 2019 to challenge prejudice against Gypsy, Roma and Traveller communities (GRT). This month’s Durham Synod, attended by 200 clergy and lay members, is the first to take this practical step.
It heard an impassioned plea by Gypsy spokesman, Bill Welch, about the pressures on travellers, before the unanimous vote to find land on which they can camp.
Mr Welch is from Darlington and gypsies are the largest minority group in Durham. “It is a lifeline from God,” said a delighted Mr Welch after the vote.
The Bishop of Durham, the Right Reverend Paul Butler said: “Our Gypsy, Roma and Traveller community is the largest ethnic minority group in County Durham and an important part of what makes our diocese special.
“Yet for generations they have been marginalised and discriminated against. With this motion, we are pledging to work with our churches to look at ways in which we have greater contact with the community and also offer safe stopping places where possible.”
Durham is on traditional routes to Appleby Horse Fair, where 10,000 travellers from all over Europe descend on the small Pennine town in neighbouring Cumbria.
This year’s event is from June 9 to 12, delayed a week to avoid clashing with The Queen’s Platinum Jubilee celebrations.
The journey to and from the Fair is part of the spiritual experience for the travellers who rely on stopping off points to rest their animals.
But the Synod’s vote comes too late to help this year.
Durham’s chaplain to GRT, retired doctor Nicky Chater, said: “We are at the early stages of this pilot.
“We will be asking churches to look favourably on allowing travellers to park on suitable land like meadows and car parks, which have access from the road, and to talk to local authorities about providing facilities, perhaps toilets and rubbish collection.
“There is a long tradition of travellers finding sanctuary on church land and we want to revive that shared history.”
She said that there was a legal obligation on local authorities to provide spaces for travellers, but at the latest count there were just 354 official transit pitches in England and Wales, with the 2011 census showing a traveller population of 53,000.
“Obviously there is a huge gap between provision and need,” said Rev Chater.
She said pressures on travellers were about to worsen with the Police, Courts, Sentencing and Crime Bill nearing its enactment in law.
“Part 4 is about making stopping over on land you don’t own a criminal offence with fines up to £2,500, confiscation of caravans and property and even prison sentences,” she said.
“All communities have people who break laws, or fail to consider the needs of others, but we don’t categorise a whole population by the acts of a few, except when it comes to gypsies.
“We hope this pilot spreads across the country because it can help to relieve the pressure and lessen the fear for a community as important as anyone else.”
(578 words)
Just last week the House of Lords Public Services Committee urged the Government to include the Gypsy, Roma and Traveller communities in its levelling up programme.
The plea came after they heard “shocking” evidence that life expectancy for Gypsy and Traveller people is reported to be 10 to 25 years less than the general population.
Baroness Armstrong, chair of the committee, said that since 2015 local planning authorities have been responsible for providing appropriate sites for Gypsies and Travellers.
But in 2020 only 8 out of 68 local authorities had identified a five-year supply of specific deliverable areas.”
The committee was also concerned that the new Police, Crime Sentencing and Courts Bill would introduce penalties for people who reside, or intent to reside, on an unauthorised encampment.
It quoted the Joint Committee on Human Rights report stating “a chronic lack of authorised sites means that many in GRT communities feel that they have no choice but to live on unauthorised encampments.
It concluded that to “criminalise unauthorised encampments without providing authorised sites would be contrary to the Government’s obligation under Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights, to facilitate the gypsy way of life.”
Mike Gloverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13884064052787404854noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8286671619753453873.post-50925970365201351812022-05-19T02:00:00.000-07:002022-05-19T02:00:17.832-07:00Level up travelers, too, say Lords THE Government has been urged to include the Gypsy, Roma and Traveller communities in its levelling up programme.
The plea came from a House of Lords select committee after they heard “shocking” evidence in a series of hearings earlier this year about the health and life prospects of the minority groups.
“The most shocking evidence that we heard was that life expectancy for Gypsy and Traveller people is reported to be 10 to 25 years less than the general population.
“The significant disparity in outcomes creates an urgency for the Government to put communities as the centre of the levelling up agenda,” wrote Baroness Armstrong, chair of the House of Lords Public Services Committee.
This week (May 17) Baroness Armstrong of Hill Top sent letters calling for action to Professor Sir Chris Witty, Chief Medical Officer for England, his deputy Dr Jeanelle de Gruchy, who co-leads the office of health improvement and disparities, and separately to Michael Gove, Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, and Sajid Javid, Secretary of State for Health and Social Care.
Baroness Armstrong was formerly known as Hilary Jane Armstrong, a British Labour Party politician who was the Member of Parliament for North-West Durham from 1987 to 2010.
Baroness Armstrong said very little had been done by the Government to address inequalities exposed in the Race Disparity Audit in 2017 and the Women and Equalities Committee in 2019.
“A lack of suitable accommodation is the major issue facing GRT communities. Around 10,000 Gypsies and Travellers currently live roadside in England because of a shortage of stopping sites, many of whom struggle to access basic amenities.
“Their lack of access is at the root of the health inequalities that affect these communities,” wrote Baroness Armstrong.
“We note that Mission Seven of the Government’s Levelling Up the United Kingdom white paper aims to narrow the gap in healthy life expectancy by 2030.
“However, there is no mention of GRT communities in the White Paper…We are concerned that the GRT communities will be side-lined and that their unacceptable health disparities, already exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, will continue.”
The Committee heard from witnesses how GRT communities had difficulty in accessing health services, especially registering with GPs. They also heard from Dr Dan Allen, deputy Head of Department, Faculty of Health, Psychology and Social Care at Manchester Metropolitan University, that: “We have seen a gradual decline in Traveller education services and specialist health services.”
He said: “If we can reinvest and re-enable early help preventive services, we will reduce the number of referrals to social services and bring parity.”
In the letter to Mr Gove, Baroness Armstrong made a ten-point challenge to the Government demanding specific action by the Government to address the inequalities, to provide more data, to provide more sites, and to work with local government to improve services to GRT communities.
In a summary of evidence, the committee said: “Our witnesses told us that a lack of suitable sites was the major issue facing Gypsies and Travellers.
“They argued that the provision of better sites would enable better access to public servies such as health and education.
“The 2015 planning policy for traveller sites established that local planning authorities are responsible for providing appropriate sites for Gypsies and Travellers, but in 2020 only 8 out of 68 local authorities had identified a five-yar supply of specific deliverable areas.”
Gypsy representative Billy Welch, said more sites were not happening and recommended that “It should be made compulsory for local authorities to provide pitches for roughly the number of Gypsies and Travellers in their area, like it is to build houses.”
The committee was also concerned that the new Police, Crime Sentencing and Courts Bill would introduce penalties for people who reside, or intent to reside, on an unauthorised encampment.
The Joint Committee on Human Rights stated “a chronic lack of authorised sites means that many in GRT communities feel that they have no choice but to live on unauthorised encampments.
It concluded that to “criminalise unauthorised encampments without providing authorised sites would be contrary to the Government’s obligation under Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights, to facilitate the gypsy way of life.”
Mike Gloverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13884064052787404854noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8286671619753453873.post-48058825501667421942022-05-07T10:01:00.001-07:002022-05-07T10:01:42.794-07:00Tories take pasting in rural CumbriaTYPICALLY, the National media coverage of the local elections was obsessed with Labour gains in traditional Tory seats in London.
Elsewhere the narrative was about Labour not making as many inroads as they might, with a mid-term national government facing financial stagnation and crisis of confidence over pandemic parties in Downing Street.
Even BBC North-West focussed on an inconsequential Labour performance in Manchester.
But here in rural Cumbria the Tories took a real pasting.
Voters were electing shadow authorities for the newly formed Cumberland in the North and West of the old administrative county and Westmorland and Furness in the South and East.
There had been fears that the new boundaries had been deliberately gerrymandered by the Conservative Government to improve their hold on local councils in the sub-region.
If that had been the tactic it couldn’t have misfired more.
In Cumberland, Labour took control of the new council – which is set to replace Allerdale, Carlisle and Copeland and the county councils next year.
In Westmorland & Furness, which replaces Barrow borough, Eden and South Lakeland districts, the Liberal Democrats took total control. Labour came second, largely due to their stronghold in Barrow.
In both new counties the Tories lost seats. This is despite five of the six Parliamentary seats in Cumbria being Tory held. Even in the exception, Westmorland and Lonsdale, the popular sitting Liberal Democrat MP Tim Farron had a much-reduced majority in 2019, with the Tories coming a close second.
So, what happened to the Tories in a rural county they traditionally dominated?
In Mr Farron’s South Lakeland citadel, the Liberal Democrats swept the board with 25 out of the 30 seats available.
The Conservatives hung on to just three seats, and only just: Matt Brereton kept his seat in High Furness, after a tense recount, with a majority of 19, Ben Cooper of the Conservatives also took Low Furness after another recount that saw him win his seat with a majority of 23.
And Helen Irving won another Conservative seat in Ulverston, where Labour councillor Jackie Drake took the party’s only South Lakeland seat and Green councillor Judy Filmore maintained her seat, the only one won by her party in Westmorland & Furness. Greens won two Cumberland seats.
Chairwoman of the Westmorland and Lonsdale Conservatives Councillor Pat Bell, who did not win a seat in Sedbergh and Kirkby Lonsdale, said candidates had registered much 'frustration' from voters while campaigning, reflecting the 'national mood'.
"It's a rural area and they are wondering are we being listened to?" she told The Westmorland Gazette.
She said frustration stemmed from the increased cost of living, with fuel bills, petrol and food prices continuing to soar and that the way people were voting in this election was 'their way of registering that frustration'.
Lib Dem councillor Peter Thornton, who is currently deputy leader of Cumbria County Council, said: “We knocked on thousands of doors and the message was that people wanted a council that addresses climate change, fixes the roads and footpaths and isn’t far away.”
Mr Farron said he believed national issues such as the price of living had had a big impact on the day’s result.
“When they brought in the new authority it felt like it was drawn up to prevent us from having a majority,” he said.
“And for us to win a majority at all is just astonishing. These are astonishing results and we’ve never ever won before all the council seats in my constituency and now we have.
“I think on a national level it shows that voters don’t take kindly to a government without integrity.”
Back in Cumberland, Sir Keir Starmer, national Labour leader, celebrated with local Labour representatives in Carlisle’s Station Hotel.
Sir Keir told Cumbria Crack: “It’s extremely positive and it’s brilliant. I was here just a week ago and to come back is brilliant. Everyone is so chuffed. It’s good for Cumberland and good for the Labour Party to show what we can do.”
Labour won 30 seats on the new authority, which means it has overall control.
The Conservatives have seven seats, the Liberal Democrats four seats, independent councillors three and the Green Party two seats.
This means Labour have gained 12 seats, the Conservatives have lost 14, the Liberal Democrats gained two, the Green Party gained two and the Independents lost two.
Labour’s Barbara Cannon, who was elected to represent the St Michael’s ward in Workington, said: “We worried and strategised about what may happen and we have done better than we expected.
“We have a lot of work to do now and quickly. I didn’t think we’d do this well, I thought we’d be talking about alliances. It’s very exciting.”
Lisa Brown, who was elected in the Currock ward for Labour and is among those in the running to be the leader of Cumberland Council, said: “It has been a long time coming. You could see when you spoke to people how despondent they were locally and nationally.
“People didn’t reflect on what they were going through on an everyday basis (during the pandemic), but this result is for those people across Cumberland that this council can now help.”
Although the local party was hopeful of a positive result in Cumberland, it took many by surprise. “It is beyond what we expected,” said Mrs Brown.
“But also the Lib Dems have taken seats and Helen (Davison) for the Greens. She is an outstanding and hardworking local councillor.
“I don’t buy into this protest vote narrative, this result is rewarding hard work by local Labour candidates, especially in Carlisle.”
It is too early to say how the results in the local elections might translate into a general election, according to Mrs Brown.
The new Westmorland & Furness authority will have 65 councillors in 33 new wards. The make-up of the authority, which will sit for five years, one as a shadow and four for real is: Liberal Democrats: 36; Labour 15; Conservative Party 11; Green Party 1; Independent: 2.
Neil Hudson, the Tory MP for Penrith and the Borders, which overlaps parts of both Westmorland and Furness and Cumberland Councils said:
"We, as the Conservative Party, have had a very disappointing set of results in both Cumberland and Westmorland and Furness.
"The results pose some difficult questions for my Party. Now is the time to regroup and reflect, so we can move forward and regain the trust and support of Cumbrian folk.
The two new councils will be shadow authorities for the first year, then run the new areas for four more years, before the next elections in 2027.
In total 213 candidates will be standing in 33 new wards for Westmorland and Furness Council.
The two main reasons for the local government shake-up are reducing costs and confusion.
Currently ratepayers aren’t sure whether it is county or district which collects the bins, repairs the potholes, or keep the streetlights working.
It is hoped having one unitary authority will make things simpler.
As for costs, the two new Cumbria authorities, will only have one chief executive and one set of officers each, making a total of two sets instead of seven at present. There is likely to be a bloody carve-up of jobs.
And then there is the estate, with grand town halls in Penrith, Kendal and Barrow. These are more likely to be used as local offices than be sold or demolished.
It is worth pointing out that the new set up is virtually back to the future.
It was the Conservative government of Ted Heath back in 1974 which created Cumbria County and its six districts from the old unitary authorities of Cumberland and Westmorland, as well as Lancashire North of the Sands and even bits of the old West Riding of Yorkshire, in Dent and Sedbergh.
Going back to that system exactly was deemed a non-starter, and too embarrassing.
Now Conservative Government has carved up Cumbria again, although some Cumbria-wide institutions like Police and Fire are likely to survive.
How much the public cares was reflected in the turn-out on May 5, which was 38.5%, not much more than half of the number of voters likely to turn out for a general election.
Mike Gloverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13884064052787404854noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8286671619753453873.post-73557916708535723192022-04-07T06:20:00.000-07:002022-04-07T06:20:12.411-07:00Back to the Future council election candidates confirmedLiberal Democrats and Conservatives are going head-to-head for control of a new unitary authority covering south and east Cumbria, including a large swathe of the Lake District.
They are the only two parties contesting all 65 seats on Westmorland and Furness Council, which stretches from Walney Island in the South-West to Pennines town Alston in the North-East.
The two ends are 72 miles apart, and a two-hours’ drive on a good day.
The new council, which takes over from April 1, 2023, will provide services to those in the current areas of Barrow borough and Eden and South Lakeland district councils, as well as those provided by Cumbria County Council.
The rest of Cumbria will be represented by Cumberland Council - covering the current area of Allerdale, Carlisle and Copeland. It will have 46 councillors.
Elections will be held on Thursday 5 May for five-year term. The two new councils will be shadow authorities for the first year, then run the new areas for four more years, before the next elections in 2027.
In total 213 candidates will be standing in 33 new wards for Westmorland and Furness Council.
Apart from the Lib Dems and Tories, there are 31 Labour candidates, 30 Greens, 18 Independents and four Trades Union and Socialist Coalition candidates.
The latter are standing for wards in Kendal, not the traditional Labour stronghold of Barrow. The shipbuilding town has been Labour run for at least twelve years, although it has a Conservative MP, Simon Fell.
He was elected mainly due to fears that Labour nationally was run by Jeremy Corbyn who was seen as anti-nuclear and likely to scrap the submarine programme which keeps the dockyards in work.
Current South Lakeland, based on Kendal, is staunchly Liberal Democrat, with Tim Farron the MP for Westmorland and Lonsdale.
His Conservative opponent, James Airey, came close in the last general election and the Tories are dominant in Eden centred on Penrith, which has had a Tory MP forever.
With such a diverse area, it is difficult to predict the result of the council election. But taking all the seats on the current district and county councils would show a split of 59 Lib Dems, 53 Conservatives, 37 Labour and four Green seats.
As always, national politics will have an influence, so it may be that Boris Johnson will be the deciding factor on whether Conservatives or Liberal Democrats win out.
Either Labour or Greens could hold the balance of power, so there is likely to be some coalition negotiated.
The two main reasons for the local government shake-up are reducing costs and confusion.
Currently ratepayers aren’t sure whether it is county or district which collects the bins, repairs the potholes or keep the streetlights working.
It is hoped having one unitary authority will make things simpler.
As for costs, the new authority will only have one chief executive and one set of officers instead of four. There is likely to be a bloody carve-up of jobs.
And then there is the estate, with grand town halls in Penrith, Kendal and Barrow. These are more likely to be used as local offices than be sold or demolished.
Commentators can’t help pointing out that the new set up is almost back to the future.
It was the Conservative government of Ted Heath back in 1974 which created Cumbria County and its six districts from the old unitary authorities of Cumberland and Westmorland, as well as Lancashire North of the Sands and even bits of West Yorkshire, in Dent and Sedbergh.
Going back to that system was deemed a non-starter.
Now it is a Conservative Government that is carving up Cumbria again, although some Cumbria-wide institutions like Police and Fire are likely to survive.
How much the public cares will be reflected in the turn-out on May 5.
The result will be declared in Barrow Town Hall at around 2 p.m. on Friday, May 6.
Mike Gloverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13884064052787404854noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8286671619753453873.post-6705276250586093782021-04-20T01:41:00.054-07:002021-04-20T04:17:25.977-07:00FOOTBALL CRAZY
I despair at the standard of journalism and public discourse in this country.
Late on Sunday night it was revealed that a dozen top European football clubs, including six from England, were forming a super league.
Cue outrage and fury. How dare they do this to our beautiful game? Debates were held in Parliament, the Prime Minister pledged to intervene, my local MP issued a direct appeal to the Government, the news channels, national and local, filled their air time with reaction, comment and analysis.
I am writing this on Tuesday morning and do you know what? I am none the wiser about why this matters at all. Even my beloved Channel 4 News failed completely to explain why this development would "ruin grassroots football" which was the cry from all the objectors.
The super league will happen on mid-week days and won't clash with the regular league fixtures, which will continue as before. So TV revenue and other income from the Premier League will contine to be trickled down to the rest of the game. Or will it? No one said.
What the super league will replace for those taking part is the Champions League. Hence the fury expressed by UEFA, who could see their money-spinner stripped of the clubs most attractive to the world audience.
But so what? Why does that matter? Isn't this just another vested interest whingeing? No one told me.
The super league was said to have no promotion and regulation. So the same clubs would be in it for all time. This apparently follows and American sport pattern. It means owners can invest in the future without fear of being demoted mid-development. This deplores me. But why does it matter if they want to play the business card? People who watch football can understand the different dynamics involved. If they don't like the Super League format, they can go somewhere else for their entertainmnet.
Besides, surely Football has already sold itself to the commercial devil years ago.
Complainants cited the community base of football clubs, the fact they were really owned by fans. Give me a break. That hasn't been true for decades. The top six or eight clubs have grown rich and bloated by dumping local connections and just buying the best players in the world. Then they pay them obscene salaries, off the scale when compared to the wages of their supporters. Real local fans, with real jobs can barely afford to watch their teams any longer.
I don't see that the Super League makes any difference.
When I travelled to Thailand and frequented a down town bar in a remote southern fishing village, I was shocked to see everyone watching the English Premiership on the TV. I even met a Swedish traveller there who knew far more about the top English clubs than I did. Those are the football fans the super league is aimed at.
So if any of my contacts reads this blog and knows why there is really any difference made by the Super League, do let me know.
No politician or media outlet has so far explained why I should care. All I have heard and read is emotive babble of response. Why does no-one explain anything any more?
Mike Gloverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13884064052787404854noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8286671619753453873.post-50374618801837165202014-11-11T08:35:00.001-08:002014-11-11T08:35:55.031-08:00Tales of the ImaginationAre you stuck in a rut? Are you struggling to find a way forward? Are you continually coming up against the same problems? Then the answers may be provided by consulting an artist.
That was what I was promised when agreeing to see one of the country’s up-and-coming artists and would-be shaman Marcus Coates. He put his theories to the test by providing his “Unblocking Service” to invited guests in Kendal, Cumbria.
He outlined to me why he believes skills learned by artists can be used by the rest of the population.
“Art is a solo activity, necessarily self-indulgent, but the skills we use can be very helpful for other people.
“The trick is to find a way to communicate those skills in a functional way, teaching people to use their imagination to explore a different way of looking at rationality.”
Coates has outlined his theories in a book Practical Guide to Unconscious Reasoning, about how to use the imagination for practical purposes.
He holds workshops for people “encouraging them to go into their unconscious world, and allowing solutions to appear in front of them.”
He believes that indigenous peoples naturally use this method of thinking, and it is a skill that the Western world has lost.
“Only 2% of decision-making is conscious, meaning 98% of the unconscious does the work. It is a matter of tuning into that.”
During his sessions at Abbot Hall Art Gallery, Kendal, Coates had one-to-one sessions with people helping them resolve issues. I was his first victim.
As a journalist based in the Lake District, I was interested in how to overcome the London-centric view of most of the national media. He related to that as an artist.
“The Art World has a set of set ideas about what is valuable. That comes from a cultural elite propagated in London.
“The answer is to forge something new outside of London, which is now happening all the time, but may not be recognised.
“More and more artists are no longer looking to London to valuate what works. We should all bypass London, especially in these days of the Internet, to Europe and the Rest of the World.”
He also predicts that artists will have to leave London as they will not be able to afford to live there.
“They will be a cultural backlash where the producers will no longer live in London and form their own groups and networks elsewhere.”
Coates works with video, photography, sculpture and performance.
His extensive knowledge and understanding of wildlife has led him to create unique interpretations of the natural world and its evolving relationship with society.
At one point in our session, we both yielded to our imagination. True to type he conjured up wild animals behaving strangely. This represented a lack of understanding, a sort of chaos, he explained.
He then drifted into a dark, sub-marine environment that culminated in him taking on the form of a sea-otter anchored to a strand of kelp. He said this made him feel relaxed and it brought him relief to be at the mercy of the current.
Coates was born in 1968 in London and graduated from the Kent Institute of Art and Design in 1990. He completed his MA at the Royal Academy in 1993. He is recognised for his performances and installations that employ shamanistic rituals and contrast natural and manmade processes.
A key element to these explorations is his use of shamanism and rituals to help resolve social issues, such as Journey to the Lower World (2004) in which Coates sought guidance from animal spirits for tenants in a condemned Liverpool tower block,
At the Baltic in 2007 he showed Dawn Chorus, in which the human voice accurately mimicked birdsong. In this multi-screen video installation 19 singers reproduced a recording of a group of wild British birds singing at dawn.
In The Plover’s Wing (2009) Coates performed a shamanic ritual to help answer questions put to him by the Mayor of Solon concerning the Israel/Palestine crisis.
Underpinning all his work is an absurdist streak and deadpan humour that allows him to communicate complex and difficult questions to a wide audience.
Marcus Coates has exhibited internationally and was awarded with the Paul Hamlyn Foundation Award for Artists in 2008 and the Daiwa Foundation Art Prize in 2009. In 2013, he was shortlisted for the fourth plinth in Trafalgar Square.
He needed all his ingenuity at Abbot Hall. His sessions were due to be held in a wooden structure, a bit like a space-pod on stilts, designed by the architectural practice Sutherland Hussey.
Called Anchorhold, it was built from 25 sheets of ply, precisely machine-cut in such a way so that all pieces interlock with minimal wastage.
Unfortunately it wasn’t up to the Cumbrian weather and let the rain in. So Coates had to carry out his sessions in a small room in the gallery.
Mike Gloverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13884064052787404854noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8286671619753453873.post-6024274678915214892014-04-26T02:40:00.001-07:002014-04-26T02:40:24.824-07:00How Rights are a curse for communitiesRead, if you so please, this press release from Wasdale Mountain Rescue Team and then I will try to explain how Human Rights/Data Protection legislation makes this sort of nonsense ever more common:
“At around 8.30 p.m. on Saturday night, a late evening but with many groups still out on the mountain, a ‘999’ call was received by Cumbria Police from a pair of walkers in their 20s who reported themselves as lost and stuck on large rocks somewhere on the summit of Scafell Pike. Their location was digitally established by the team leader using the SARLOC system as being on a rocky path within 100m of the summit. They were very lightly equipped, no spare clothing, no map or compass but did have torches. They had ‘gone on ahead’ of the father and friend on the way to the top and became lost. The father had the only map and compass in the group. If the couple had a map they would not have known how to use it. As they were so close to a busy summit, the team leader worked hard to encourage them to make their way to the top and find some helpful walkers. They were unwilling to move as ‘legs were seized up’ even though they knew the team would take a further two hours to get to them.
A limited callout followed, with four team members setting off plus one team member already on the mountain working with a group and a further team member from Penrith MRT already on the mountain. The father and friend, who had presumably given up, were descending via Lingmel Col. They were quickly located by the team member on the fell but the father was not willing to re-ascend to assist in locating his daughter and friend even though their location was now accurately known by the team leader and they were safe on a path although cold and wet.
The team eventually brought the pair back down to the valley bottom, after a very frustrating night for the team leader, and reunited the pair with the father who was asleep in his car at the bottom. The incident was closed at 2.30 a.m.
Inexperience, lack of equipment, insufficient preparation, inability to get themselves out of trouble, not staying together as a group and a less than helpful group leader (the father) – another avoidable rescue to add to the many the volunteer teams are having to deal with.”
So what has this got to do with Human Rights/Data Protection?
Well before these twin curses came to dominate British legislation, the MRT would have been more than likely to name the parties involved in their press release.
The family concerned would have been humiliated and ridiculed by their peers. Anyone tempted to repeat their follies would have thought more than twice and probably decided to act more responsibly.
In fact when the Government first brought in data protection, to safeguard us all from bankers and other pushy institutions selling on our personal details, the Commissioner appointed to police the Act took it upon herself to use the law instead to attack the media.
Her name was Elizabeth France and her first case actually involved a newspaper publishing details of a teacher who took a school party to the top of a mountain in bad weather and inappropriately dressed. When the MRT told the Press the name of the teacher and the school, he appealed to the Commissioner under data protection legislation.
The result was the start of a remarkable clamp down on details given to the media about all sorts of information which ought to be in the public domain.
Never mind that crime victims might want to talk about their experiences to elicit help for the police in catching the culprits; Never mind that traffic accident victims use up public monies for ambulances, hospitals and police; never mind that fire victims are already known to everyone in the neighbourhood and may want to talk about these very public events; none of them any longer have their names released by the police to the media.
Of course the media have other sources and you will notice the commonly used “named by local sources.”
But police are now so fearful of upsetting “human rights” they won’t even confirm names obtained from other sources.
That is why they will never get to hear about any useful information the community might have about these “victims” and which may be pertinent to the police inquiries.
And that is why people will continue to act irresponsibly, and make demands on our emergency services with impunity.
They know that their actions will never face the scrutiny of their peers.
Human rights now trump the right on the wider public to know, at least in the eyes of our misguided legislators and law enforcement agencies.
Mike Gloverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13884064052787404854noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8286671619753453873.post-34829220273226425442014-04-26T02:35:00.000-07:002014-04-26T02:35:18.376-07:00BT blocks path to global marketTHE message is loud and clear. The future prosperity of the nation and viability of our businesses are inexorably linked to the world-wide web. This is especially true of rural economies.
The Internet is crucial to sales and profits in a global market. TV Troubleshooter Lord Digby Jones reinforced the point when he dropped in to Ambleside to launch Cumbria University’s business hub.
He urged the county’s companies to tap into the rising Chinese middle-class market, which cannot get enough luxury goods from us Brits, apparently.
Well, I am sorry to be a prophet of doom. But if we rely on British Telecom, the monopolistic IT provider, our efforts are doomed to failure.
The company has become so big and global economy focused that it has lost touch with its customers.
I didn’t want to bother Lord Digby with our little local difficulties, but at the very moment he spoke to the cheering audience in Ambleside, the village where I live was without the Internet. The householders didn’t even have landline telephones.
This was three full days after a cable collapsed and lay between the grazing sheep in a field. It took another three days for BT to get their act together and fix the fault.
That meant that for six days this journalist could do no research, or access e-mails or communicate with his potential markets.
Next door a doctor could not research her ground-breaking thesis, or offer her services as a locum. The other side a bed and breakfast business couldn’t book in any guests, even though one provisional booking was for workers from Open Reach, BT’s arms length repair service. Oh irony of ironies.
The mail order business over the way could not sell or dispatch anything; the caravan site owners up the road couldn’t take bookings or even pay its staff through the electronic system it uses.
A week is 2 per cent of a year. 2 per cent can make the difference between profit or loss, viability or administration.
Yet despite the crucial nature of this very obvious fault, could we get BT to respond? Not quickly enough.
Like most of the villagers, although not all, I have a mobile phone, so as soon as I became aware of the lack of Internet and landline phone on Easter Sunday I contacted BT, or their agents, in Asia. They told me that as it was Easter, they had no engineers and the clock wouldn’t start ticking until Tuesday. They then had four days to fix the fault.
I said that wasn’t good enough and asked to register a complaint, which is what I was told would happen. The next day, Easter Monday I found the fault, the cable lying in a field.
My neighbor tells me he has been telling BT for years that their cables are slung too low across the fields and are bound to get snagged in farm machinery. Some of the telephone poles are rotten. One even has a woodpecker nest in it.
BT ignores these little local problems until there is an emergency. Then they take four days plus Bank Holidays to respond.
I rang my friend in Bangalore or wherever to tell them my exciting news. I don’t think it was even the same city I was talking to, and they confirmed it would be the following Thursday before they got started. When I squealed they said I was the only complainant and it was being handled as a single customer problem.
I then toured the village to find that every other resident (nine households) had complained their businesses were completely blocked by the fault.
I also found out that the caravan site owner was actually a BT business customer and was thinking of quitting as his upload speed was one third of one Mega-Byte. I confirmed mine was less than 1MB.
Stress levels were rising and the only conversation when we met in the lanes was how BT was ruining lives and businesses.
Then joy, on Tuesday an Open Reach engineer turned up, climbed one of the offending poles and with his little hand-held computer tried to fix each connection in the junction box.
After telling him how pleased we were to get some action, I said that although I am no expert I thought he was wasting his time and pointed out the offending cable in the grass. He looked shocked, even though I had told BT the problem two days previously.
He descended and was joined later in the day by a van load of clip-board holders, who took notes, shook their heads and disappeared again.
On Wednesday an Open Reach van appeared and said that new cables, poles and junction boxes would have to be ordered and it would probably be the week after that before work started.
Another neighbor went to the nearest Open Reach depot, in Kendal, to make his views known. On Thursday a van and a cherry-picker turned up and the cable restored. Within minutes Internet and land-lines were working again.
The poles are the same rotten ones. The cable still hangs low over the fields.
If rural areas are really to be given a level-playing field in the global economy, then the infra-structure needs to be in place to support them.
Cables slung over fields are susceptible to wind, ice and tractors. High speed broad-band is not even an option on such copper wires on Victorian technology.
It doesn’t matter which Internet provider you use, unless it is satellite, the Internet comes down wires maintained, or not, by BT.
In the long term, fibre-optic cables, laid underground are the only answer, unless you are lucky enough to live near a business hub.
In the short to mid-term, BT needs to drastically improve its customer service.
Until that happens rural economies are destined to lose out in the global market.
Mike Gloverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13884064052787404854noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8286671619753453873.post-37551999765001544012013-03-28T12:31:00.000-07:002013-03-28T12:31:12.576-07:00Double confession of dealings with Jimmy SavileIT has become fashionable among journalists to recount their encounters with Jimmy Savile, the former DJ whose alleged sexual misbehaviour has dominated the media over recent months. I am not sure whether this represents some public display of guilt that he was allowed to get away with it with apparent impunity for so long. But whatever the motives here are my two pennyworth.
It was after all my dad who put Jimmy Savile on the road to stardom. For many years this would be said with a degree of moderate pride. Not unreserved pride, as Savile was always seen as a bit of a creepy character.
Over the decades there were those who thought his demeanour was obnoxious. For some, but not all, this odiousness was trumped by the herculean feats he performed for charity.
Surely no-one who was evil would give so much time to supporting paraplegics in Stoke Mandeville or giving up free time to be a porter at Leeds hospitals? Now there is an explanation for his deeds that transcends creepy. But no one I ever met suspected that his motive may have been sexual predation.
Certainly when my father was deputy programme controller of the infant TV station Tyne Tees Television at the very start of the 1960s, he could not have suspected.
Peter Glover saw it as part of his mission to bring on other young directors. One was Malcolm Morris, who he put in charge of the project called Young at Heart aimed at the teenage market. He went on to direct the iconic This is Your Life for many years. His own autobiography This Was My Life recalls how my dad discovered Jimmy Savile.
Yorkshireman, Savile was then plying his trade in the large dance halls of Glasgow. My dad brought him to Newcastle to launch his TV career. I met him at the studio and he had dyed his hair tartan and developed the outrageous cigar-smoking persona which came to dominate the English pop scene in its halcyon days. We were not left alone so I was under no threat, even though he demonstrated his larger than life character. I was, however, abused by Savile 20 years later.
During my first freelance journalism career in the early 1980s I was getting plenty of shift-work on the Nationals, with the Daily Star giving me at least two evenings a week. It was a strange set up with the head office in those days in Manchester. The London office was in the back of a corridor in the Daily Express offices in Fleet Street. There was a four-man news desk who not only decided the agenda, they also told reporters exactly what they wanted out of a story, even before the facts were gathered. The introduction was provided in advance of the stories being researched. It was the reporter’s job to make the facts fit the imagined headline.
It was coming up to Christmas 1983 when the assistant News Editor, Ken Bennett, had one of those ideas the popular nationals love. There was a severely disabled girl from the Home Counties who was housebound and a freelance had filed a story saying she had never had a Christmas card from outside the family, sad enough you might think. But Ken had spotted a another story claiming that Savile, by then one of the top Disc Jockeys and TV presenters in Britain, had never sent a Christmas Card.
So one awful snowy night I was dispatched to a shop to buy a card and catch a bus to Shepherd’s Bush where the BBC was recording Jim’ll Fix It, a programme where Jimmy Savile made wishes come true for children. That seems an awful thought now. My task was to get him to sign the card and the Daily Star would send it to the poor girl in Surrey. Well easier said than done. I had to blag my way into the BBC and then wait for a break in recording, so I could button-hole Mr Savile. He kept me waiting in the corridor for about an hour and then, having finally let me in to his private dressing room, took the Mickey mercilessly at my choice of card. I thought he was going to refuse to sign it. I was tempted to remind him that it was my father that put him on the road to stardom, but in the end I decided that was unprofessional and persuaded him to sign the thing anyway, mainly by refusing to leave until he had. Then it was back to the Daily Star to report my triumph and file the story in time for deadline.
Of course this whole episode took on a new perspective when Savile’s alleged predatory paedophilia was highlighted thirty years later. What had he been doing for the hour he kept me waiting outside his dressing room? Certainly it seems his aggressive mocking of me was typically symptomatic of his general bullying of journalists. Even worse, had I tempted him to get in touch with another poor potential victim by sending the Christmas card? I will never know the answers. Until the scandal which rocked the BBC in 2012, my experience of being abused by Savile was just a light-hearted human interest story. But it did give an interesting insight into the mind games he is said by many to play with journalists, police officers and others.
These two episodes are selected extracts from my nearly-completed autobiography “Flirting with Fame”, as yet not available from any bookshops anywhere at all.
Mike Gloverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13884064052787404854noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8286671619753453873.post-7047797956194939312013-03-27T07:16:00.001-07:002013-03-27T07:16:31.926-07:00License to kill free speechIT is sad but now inevitable that Britain is destined to become one of the most repressed and secretive countries in the world.
It is already plummeting down the United Nations chart of nations where freedom of the Press is respected.
By the time the Government has finished implementing its version of the Leveson report, complete with licensed media, and the police have finished Operations Elveden and Weeting, then we will truly be languishing in the lower regions of the lowest division.
It comes as no comfort to me that I have watched this state of affairs unfold over the decades I have been a working journalist. Too much of my time and energy has been wasted trying to prevent the inexorable progress of the press shacklers.
There was a time when publicity was courted by politicians, police and any organisation on the side of good.
There was a conspiracy of consensus between those who valued the glue that held society together.
If people transgressed what was commonly seen as decent behaviour they could expect censor and exposure in the media.
Slowly over the years, the cult of the individual has overturned this arrangement. Human rights legislation, the data protection act and the obsession by a House of Commons dominated by lawyers to introduce laws which line their profession’s pockets have led to current proposal that any publication which doesn’t sign up to the Government’s license risks being priced out of existence.
There are so many ironies in this that it is hard to know where to start, or finish. Let’s stick to three.
One, when I directly handled complaints at a major city daily newspaper, 95% of them were about statements made in court. Readers would berate the newspaper for reporting, accurately, what had been said by lawyers in mitigation for their clients. The most vociferous MP in his attacks on the media, Clive Soley, was of course a lawyer. So lying lawyers fed a lawyer’s campaign to vilify the media.
Two, an obsession with privacy, stoked by the famous and influential, has come hand-in-glove with the explosion of social media, which in the words of the founder of Facebook, are leading to a world in which there is no such thing as privacy.
Three, in a world in which everyone can be a publisher, through the likes of Facebook or Twitter, Lord Leveson’s report totally ignores the new media. So we are left with laws drafted and aimed specifically at the established print media and the journalists who work for them.
For more than 300 years journalists in this country have had to follow laws and conventions that apply to the whole population. Now we enter a brave new world when this is no longer true.
There are already a couple of dozen laws, civil and criminal, that can be used to prevent publication, including defamation, contempt, prejudice, data protection, secrets acts and child protection. Many of these are right and proper in a civilised society.
Knowledge of them is essential for professional journalists and comprises most of their training needs. What the Government plans to do now is penalise those who actually understand restrictions of free speech, and give unfair advantage to the bloggers and other rabble-rousers who haven’t got a clue.
Any perusal of social media would expose how dangerous this is, with racist, bigoted, prejudicial and downright offensive remarks on every site.
None of the above is supposed to excuse the phone-hacking or bribery of police officers and others for information, if that is what happened.
This is criminal behaviour, for which there are perfectly good laws which could have been applied to bring the perpetrators to book. To use a few cases where the police and politicians were too weak or corrupt to intervene to justify laws aimed specifically at muzzling or curtailing the Press is both bizarre and deeply troubling to anyone who believes in freedom of expression.
Mike Gloverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13884064052787404854noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8286671619753453873.post-48011342338281008972013-03-13T14:36:00.002-07:002013-03-13T14:38:10.872-07:00Why officialdom can sometimes be so wrong
I called in today to see farmer Edward Steele who has been fighting officialdom for years.
He is the third generation to have leasehold of a 30-acre farm hidden from view in the folds of rural land between Burneside and Kendal, and nestling up to the banks of the River Sprint, a tributary of the Kent.
It is more than 20 years since he decided the land could not support him and his family so started to put static caravans on the site as holiday lets.
Instead he found that there was a huge demand from families wanting a rustic life-style but at a cost that could be afforded in the highly priced property markets of the Lake District.
As demand grew, he put up more and more lodges and barn structures, attracting alternative life-style tenants. Some carried out small businesses in other barns.
Mr Steele charged them roughly half of the commercial rents in nearby Kendal town. In addition he provided free wood-burners and fuel.
Trees and hedges grew around these “eco-lodges” so that the former agricultural land became wooded glades where wild-life flourished.
Children played in a country idyll, safely. Some were educated at home by their new age parents.
Many of the tenants had histories of mental illness, as does Mr Steele, but the lifestyle meant they were able to support each other and stay out of the clutches of the health system.
His landlords, a Catholic charity, took a proportion of the rental income and the local council, South Lakeland District Council, took rates and emptied the bins.
So everyone was happy.
But there was blight on their horizon. Mr Steele had acquired, by default, planning permission for four of the lodges, but not the rest. And the land was clearly allocated for farming on the district plan.
So officialdom’s wheels ground slowly into action. Mr Steele had to apply for planning permission, which was refused.
He appealed and lost again. He was told to restore the land for agriculture. That meant evicting the tenants, which he refused to do, as well as flattening hedgerows, trees and the lodges.
He was prosecuted once and won on a technicality as the council charged him as the owner.
So they started again by taking him to civil court for breach of the planning inspector’s ruling.
This time a judge agreed the council’s was right in law, which is all that matters in the courts.
He ordered Mr Steele to do as he had been told or face jail.
The council has now gone to enormous expense of re-housing the tenants in urban properties they don’t want to be in. There will be an on-going cost to ratepayers from housing benefit. No doubt the health service will face future costs of dealing with mental illness. Goodness knows how much the court hearings and council officer time cost the public purse.
A depressed Mr Steele spends every day at the controls of a massive digger destroying the wild-life haven he has spent two decades encouraging, uprooting trees and hedgerows and clearing the debris. All but the four original lodges are emptied and flattened.
The whole area now looks like a World War One battle scene, and no, that is not hyperbole.
In private moments the SLDC councilors say they have to comply with the law. Besides they don’t want shanty towns springing up all over the fringes of the Lake District.
“We have to draw the line somewhere,” said one senior councillor.
Mr Steele fears he will be evicted by the charity from the farmhouse his grandfather built 100 years ago and without the income from lodges he will be declared bankrupt, as the farm is even less viable than it was when he started on this journey.
Why do I feel that this is a crying shame and proof that sometimes the law can be an ass?
Mike Gloverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13884064052787404854noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8286671619753453873.post-48109607947810002252012-06-26T03:03:00.003-07:002012-06-26T03:03:34.294-07:00Communication breakdownLIKE a lot of businesses these days, including NatWest bank, mine has become totally dependent on new technology.
Using the world-wide web enables me to gather information, reconfigure it to suit my customers and then send it by e-mail, anywhere around the globe.
So when a worker driving a bulldozer to dig a trench across a field opposite my house cut through the BT cable, my business came to an immediate halt. The Internet as well as business and home landlines ceased to work, as you would expect.
That wasn’t BT’s fault. But what happened next gave an interesting insight into the thinking processes of Britain’s exclusive IT communications company. Unless you use a satellite supplier, your internet, and of course your telephone landline, come down BT Network’s cables.
So I rang 151 on my mobile, as I remembered it as the BT Engineer’s number. I got Vodafone, my mobile provider. The Vodafone technician used the web to try to find a BT phone number for me, but could only come up with internet solutions, obviously no good as I had no internet.
I eventually found a number in the phone book which I recognized as the old engineer’s number 151, but with a 0800 prefix. I rang it.
I was told by an English sounding recorded message that my call would be recorded for training purposes. I was then told by a different, Scottish-sounding, recorded message that I would be charged 14p a minute for the call and invited to ring another number which might be cheaper. I declined and stuck with the 151.
I was told by a third recorded message that they were busy and would I prefer to report my fault on-line. As I had no internet this was not possible. After listening for 20 times to the same advice, I was starting to get angry.
An hour later the phone was answered by a human being with an Asian sub-continent accent on a very poor line. By then my mobile was low on charge, so he was having trouble hearing me too.
We shouted at each other across the ether. Then I made a dreadful error. I tried to be helpful and told him about the bulldozer and the cable.
He said in that case I had to ring a different number belonging to the strangely named Open Reach Network 3rd Party Damage Report Team. This I did reluctantly. Then I got another set of recorded voice messages about 0800 being expensive, would I like to ring another number, and that I couldn’t use this number to report faults or broadband service interruption.
But that was the number my BT friend had told me to ring, so what was I supposed to do? I stuck with it. After more recorded messages about them being busy, I finally got though to another human being.
She told me I had to ring BT engineers to report the fault! I screamed. I then tried to remain calm enough to explain events so far. She said it wasn’t her fault but she only dealt with health and safety issues. It was her job to make sure there was no danger to the public, but faults had to be reported to my provider.
But my provider is BT, and BT owns Open Reach, I argued. But Open Reach is not allowed to give BT customers preference and Oftel insists they refer me back to BT engineers, she countered. She said I shouldn’t have told the engineers about the damage.
What is more, she added helpfully, if Open Reach repaired the cable that didn’t mean the fault would be fixed. That was up to the BT engineers.
I screamed again. Then I called BT Engineers again. This time I didn’t mention the damage.
I was put onto an automatic system that told me they were checking the line and would I like to report it on-line. As I was talking to a recorded message, I couldn’t explain that they were wasting their time. I knew there was a fault and no, I couldn’t go on-line BECAUSE MY CABLE WAS SEVERED!
Besides if I had told them that they would probably have told me to ring health and safety again. So I kept quiet and waited.
Another quarter of an hour later, I was told there was a fault. You, dear reader, should now understand that this was not a surprise to me. They then said that I could be kept up to date by text messages, to which I agreed.
So I got a text, then a phone call from Open Reach, telling me again that they were worried about health and safety. It would take a couple of hours for a man to come from Liverpool “to assess the damage” but the cable might not be repaired until tomorrow. And no, that didn’t mean the fault would be fixed.
I then got three texts from Vodafone asking me to rate the level of service. I hope BT do the same.
I then received a phone call from Open Reach in Liverpool, asking me to tell them if the damaged cable was a danger to the public. I didn’t think so, but if I told them that, they would put us off to later, so I said I wasn’t able to make that judgment for them.
The Scouser was obviously not happy at my lack of co-operation. He said he would have to spend extra money getting someone out. In the circumstances, I didn’t dissuade him.
I then got a text message from BT saying they would try to fix the fault by 5pm the following day.
Oh, and by the way, the text told me to track progress on-line. Aaaaaaargh!
Four hours after the original incident an Open Reach turned up, but not to repair the cable, never mind fix the fault, but to assess the danger. He put a triangular fence with red and white tape round the damaged cable and left it unrepaired. That was end of day one.
Day two an Open Reach engineer turned up and fixed the cable and fault by 10 a.m. So in the end BT’s various companies did quite well in the circumstances. If they want advice on human communication, as opposed to IT, then I know where they can get it.
That’s what my business does.Mike Gloverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13884064052787404854noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8286671619753453873.post-35523905249098795872012-05-29T05:54:00.001-07:002012-05-29T05:54:23.672-07:00Upbeat police and media relationsLORD Leveson, the judge heading the inquiry into press standards, has said he hopes tighter rules on police and media relations will not stop beat bobbies tipping off local reporters.
Well, put out the flags, bang the big drum and three cheers for his Lordship. But don’t assume that his words of wisdom will lead to a restoration of the sort of working relationship that used to benefit society.
Lord Leveson said it was obviously important that neighbourhood police officers should be able to speak to local press about events, pass on good news stories, raise concerns, seek witnesses and other material that helps glue communities together.
“It seems to me sensible that everything one can do to encourage that sort of contact is worthwhile,” he said.
He seemed to find a sympathetic ear in The Home Secretary Theresa May who responded: “The important thing is for officers to know where the line is drawn between who they are able to speak to and what they are able to say in those conversations.”
She added: “It shouldn’t have a chilling effect but I think what’s important is that we have a framework that doesn’t have a chilling effect and a framework that enables common sense to be operated in these relationships.”
“I think it’s trying to apply common sense to the relationship the police should have with the media,” she added.
Mrs May has received guidance from police chiefs which recommends that officers should not accept gifts, gratuities or hospitality except those of “trivial nature”.
The Assocation of Chief Police Officers (Acpo) has suggested allowing officers to receive only “light refreshments” during meetings with reporters, seemingly ruling out lavish lunches.
Previously forces drew up their own guidelines, with wide divisions in what was deemed acceptable.
The new guidance calls for more robust decision-making and recommends that forces should have a single register of gifts and hospitality governed by the head of professional standards.
It calls for a “shift to blanket non-acceptability save for a certain circumstances and a common-sense approach to the provision of a light refreshments and trivial and inexpensive gifts of bona fide and genuine gratitude from victims and communities”.
The guidance continues: “One extreme can properly be considered to be a breach of criminal law (the Bribery Act 2010) through to the low-level hospitality which could in no way be considered as a breach of integrity on any party involved.”
Mrs May said: “I think that is a sensible approach that is being taken by Acpo in an attempt to find a greater consistency.
“What’s important isn’t that they have a single force register but that everybody knows that there is a general belief that they shouldn’t be taking gifts, gratuities and hospitality, except where they are of a more trivial nature.”
The real obstacle to a sensible approach, however, is the control freak tendency of senior police officers with their armies of press officers, public relations experts and marketing departments.
If, instead, they trained officers to tell the media what is going on, leave editing material to the trained journalists and their legal advisers, encourage relationships built on trust and mutual support, with nothing more than an occasional cup of tea or pint of beer involved, then it would make for a more honest, open and helpful attitude.
The ultimate beneficiaries would be the public, with fast dissemination of information leading to apprehension of villains, traffic updates and hazard warnings.
If Leveson’s inquiry leads to this then it might have been worth a smidgeon of its time and cost, at least.Mike Gloverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13884064052787404854noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8286671619753453873.post-44508603486326900652012-05-01T12:22:00.000-07:002012-05-01T12:22:32.972-07:00Reaching the partsTHIS week we were presented with the results of research of the sort that has us crying out loud: “I could have told you that.”
Nevertheless I cheered when I read it.
The startling result was that sales of national newspapers increase when editions carry more regional content. Hallelujah!
It may be blindingly obvious, but it is a lesson that the National Press would do well to take to heart.
Their circulations have plummeted by roughly a half over the last ten years, with everything from round-the-clock TV news to lifestyles to the Internet blamed.
But a factor far less discussed is that the accountants have taken over the board-rooms. They look at the cost of running teams of staff reporters in the regions and deem them surfeit to requirements.
Offices have been closed and reporters, many of them experienced journalists who learned their trade on regional titles, made redundant.
The result is that the papers have become more London-centric and driven by agendas remote and irrelevant to the vast majority of readers.
Newspapers have opted for the easy political fare and celebrity news, easier to garner in the capital, and ignored real stories about real people living in the parts of the country where newspapers are still read.
If you doubt this analysis, then look at the comparative resilience of the Scottish media. North of the border they still produce newspapers that reject the London bias, and their sales have held up far better than their English counterparts.
From Liverpool to Norwich and Newcastle to Southampton there will be readers crying out for better representation of stories from their regions.
So The Sun is to be commended for finally realising the error of their ways and confirming they will re-open their Manchester offices.
It has promoted Northern correspondent Guy Patrick to Northern News Editor to lead a seven-strong team, which includes deputy Northern news editor Richard Moriaty and Northern features editor Jane Atkinson, alongside four reporters: Andrew Chamberlain, Rachel Dale, Emma Foster and Lauren Veevers.
It was discredited Sun editor Rebekah Brooks who closed the paper’s old Manchester office in 2004 with the loss of ten jobs. But she was only one of many. Even a newspaper with as strong a Manchester connection as The Guardian acted similarly.
Northen Editors and correspondents have been biting the dust consistently over the last few years.
Now along comes the research and guess what? It finds the more regional content The Sun has, the more copies it sells.
Well blow me down with a feather. Next it will be research proving ursine defecation usually happens in the trees and the Catholic tendency of Popes.
But let all of us with an interest in the future of newspapers in general, and their regional content in particular, rejoice.Mike Gloverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13884064052787404854noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8286671619753453873.post-65002308893031916822012-04-03T06:38:00.000-07:002012-04-03T06:39:50.260-07:00A right royal suspectTHANKS to Prince Charles and a soggy day in the Lake District, I now know what it is like to be an Asian or Arab-looking young man in Great Britain today.<br />I was today corralled, questioned and, despite my best efforts, intimidated by three of Scotland Yard’s finest undercover special forces. No doubt they were armed.<br />I think I was guilty of being provocatively dressed, in that I was wearing a mackintosh and a ridiculous wide-brimmed Lake District rain hat, useful for keeping the wet stuff off my note-book as I went about my daily business gathering news.<br />Not being in the main-stream media these days, I no longer get gilded letters from Buckingham Palace or notifications from Press Association when there is a royal visit pending. Nor am I admitted to the enclave of local dignitaries who swarm to such occasions to savour the scent of glamour which still attaches to the Royal family.<br />But I do keep my ear to the ground and when I found out Prince Charles was visiting the Lake District, I decided to tag along, to watch the watchers and chat to those he had graced with his presence afterwards to see if he said anything of interest I could sell to the National or regional media.<br />His first port of call was Staveley Mill Yard, just outside Kendal, where he went to the local baker, furniture maker and Hawkshead brewery, the owner of which is a former BBC radio correspondent Alex Brodie.<br />So having got the lie of the land from Alex, I went down to the Mill Yard and watched the local school-children, villagers and business people wave their flags and put on the semblance of a Royal welcome.<br />I had a leisurely coffee in the excellent Wilf’s cafe, waiting for the razzmatazz to die down before moving in for my mop-up exercise.<br />It was proving to be pretty boring. Even Alex was struggling to find an angle for his press release.<br />So I headed back towards my car in the yard car park. It was then I became aware of being followed, then hailed by three burly men.<br />They looked like slightly seedy, past their best, rugby players, or bookmakers perhaps. I stopped, turned to face them and put on my most disarming smile.<br />For a fleeting second I wandered if I was going to be mugged. But instead one of them explained, in a Durham accent, that they were from the Royal Protections squad. Two of them produced Metropolitan police identity cards.<br />They explained that I had been behaving oddly, by which I assume they meant I hadn’t been standing in the rain waving a pathetic union flag at some strange man in a limousine.<br />They demanded to see my business card and credit card, wanted to know what I was doing and for whom. Could I prove I was who I said I was? They wanted to know my birth date.<br />They took my car registration number and the smallest of the three, a cockney, started taking copious notes. These turned out to be my description.<br />The third man, the red-haired silent one, whose idea of camouflage was to wear a rugby shirt with a badge saying Cumbria RU, got on his mobile phone to some central data-base to check me out.<br />I thought I was about to be frisked and told to bend over the bonnet of my car for a good seeing to, but disappointingly they seemed satisfied by my generally relaxed demeanour and explanations.<br />I told them I had been on the verge of leaving as there was no story for me to report until they turned up. It was a joke as the media would not really be interested in Royal protectors doing their jobs.<br />But the note-taker seemed bolstered by the idea. He puffed up his chest and said “you gonna write ‘baht us, then.” “Might do,” said I, not wanting to give ground in the intimidation games. He actually seemed pleased.<br />There are two ways of looking at this episode. You can see it as an example of the terrorism-obsessed forces of law and order picking on a law-abiding citizen with a view to intimidating him. Or you can relax easier in your bed knowing that the Royal family is being well protected.<br />They were polite. Their guns were hidden. I came to no harm.<br />I suspect other innocent people get a far less civilised inquisition, even in this country, particularly if they are from a group, some members of which are seen to be a threat.<br />But despite my natural confidence and experience of such matters, there will be a small part of me wondering if I will get a knock on the door in the next couple of days.Mike Gloverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13884064052787404854noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8286671619753453873.post-78588633225345862462012-02-14T05:55:00.000-08:002012-02-14T05:57:18.533-08:00Press freedom under threatTHOSE people who are rubbing their hands in glee at the plight of the established media may like to reflect on the fact that the United Kingdom has dropped nine places in the 2011/12 Press Freedom index.<br />The UK now stands at its joint lowest position since the survey was first carried out in 2002, standing at 28th, falling below the likes of Cape Verde and Namibia, the first two African countries to break into the top 20.<br />The campaign group Reporters without Borders, which compiles the survey, blames the UK’s “archaic” libel laws, which “threaten freedom of reporting”. the Leveson Inquiry and the London riots. <br />The accompanying report added: “[The UK] caused concern with its approached to the protection of privacy and its response to the London riots. Despite universal condemnation, the UK also clings to a surreal law that allows the entire world to come and sue news media before it courts.”<br />Citing the impact of the London riots, RWB said it was “worried” about co-operation between the BlackBerry manufacturer Research in Motion (RIM) and the police after the company provided Scotland Yard with information about a number of BlackBerry users following the disturbances. <br />RWB claimed this “jeopardised” their personal data. <br />The rankings are based on a country’s score in a 44-question survey covering areas including violence against journalists, censorship laws and freedom of the internet. <br />As has been the case in each of the surveys put together over the past decade, Scandinavian countries dominate the top of the table, with Finland and Norway taking joint top spot this year.<br />Eritrea, North Korea and Turkmenistan make up the bottom three for the seventh year in a row.<br />This year’s figures also drop the United States 27 places to 47th, after some journalists were arrested during coverage of the Occupy Wall Street protests.<br />The report concludes: “Never has Freedom of Information been so closely associated with democracy. Never have journalists, through their reporting, vexed the enemies of freedom so much. Never have acts of censorship and physical attacks on journalists seemed so numerous.”<br />The timing of this report was apposite with Sun associate editor Trevor Kavanagh warning that journalists arrested in this country, including five of his colleagues, and questioned by police have done no more than “act as journalists have acted on all newspapers throughout the ages, unearthing stories that shape our lives, often obstructed by those who prefer to operate behind closed doors.”<br />The five Sun staff journalists arrested at the weekend were questioned on suspicion of aiding and abetting misconduct in a public office.<br />There are a couple of dozen laws that are routinely used in Britain to curtail Press Freedom, but this charge is an offence so obscure that there is not one word about it in the 2009 edition of journalists’ media law bible McNae’s. So no journalist could reasonably be expected to know anything about it.<br />It’s an ancient offence under common law, rather than legislation, and dates back to 1783.<br />Doubts have been expressed about whether the charge of aiding and abetting misconduct in a public office can even apply to journalists. The idea behind the charge is to police public officials, not journalists.<br />Dominic Ponsford, Editor of the media industry’s trade magazine, Press Gazette, wrote: “I suppose technically that is a conspiracy to leak out secret information, but we would live in a strange and dark place if that sort of behaviour was made illegal.<br />“Proof that we are already living in unsettling times is given by the fact that News Corp – previously a staunch defender of press freedom – is providing the ‘evidence’ of the crimes against these journalists without a fight, or any discussion with those under suspicion about whether they had a public interest defence.<br />“Most journalists would, as Mail editor Paul Dacre might put it, die in a ditch to protect the anonymity of their sources. Yet News Corp is apparently serving them up on a plate to the police without any fight.”<br />One of the Sun journalists arrested as part of a police corruption probe has been questioned about an expense claim for £50 spent on taking two policemen to lunch, according to The Times.<br />Police are understood to be acting on information found in a cache of 300 million emails, expense claims, phone records and other documents which News Corp’s Management and Standards Committee has been analysing.<br />I left Fleet Street 28 years ago because I was uncomfortable with its ethics and culture, but I would not feel any less uncomfortable living in a country where Media freedom was so curtailed that journalists were too intimidated to do their jobs.<br />Lord Leveson will require the wisdom of Solomon to do his job. He also needs to be brave enough to resist pressure from those expecting his inquiry to introduce even more legislation to further muzzle the media.<br />If the police had applied properly the laws that already exist, there would be no bribery of their officers or hacking of mobile telephones to investigate.<br />Sources: The Guardian, Press Gazette and The Times.Mike Gloverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13884064052787404854noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8286671619753453873.post-91298096891169168852012-02-08T06:23:00.001-08:002012-02-08T06:31:57.181-08:00Mail boss reinvents union codeSomewhere in a box or drawer I have a memo from Paul Dacre wishing me well in my career. He wrote it when I quit the Daily Mail as a regular casual.<br />This was back in 1984 when I was appointed deputy editor of The Bedfordshire Times. He was then News Editor of the Mail, one of several young, talented news room executives jostling for recognition from the then boss, Sir David English.<br />I thought it touching and the sign of a good employer that he took the trouble. He, of course, received his own recognition by succeeding Sir David to the top slot.<br />In those days he used to sit in a goldfish bowl in the otherwise open-plan office of the Daily Mail in their old Carmelite Street offices. The actual news desk was manned by minions who were supposed to filter out phone calls and the dross sent in by freelances and others for consideration for publication.<br />Only the best of the best was supposed to get to Paul’s attention. He then produced a closely typed news list consisting of a single sheet of A4. Around ten or twelve items a day made it on to the list, each with a couple of lines of explanation.<br />If the story didn’t make it on to this list it wasn’t worth bringing to Sir David’s attention. The news tasting abilities this demanded were considerable.<br />Also in this private office of Mr Dacre was an amazing document, in about 50 volumes. It was what was called a reverse telephone directory, with every street in Britain listed by town or area, with the telephone number and name of every householder.<br />It had been compiled by telephone engineers to help them trace and fix faults, and was covered by the official secrets act. In those days the telephone system was run by the General Post Office, a Government organisation.<br />The going rate for a bribe to secure a copy of this document, which was a tremendously helpful resource for newspapers, was apparently £100, quite a lot of money in those days.<br />I am reminded of this illegal access to information, every time I see Mr Dacre trying to fend off inquisitors during the Leveson inquiry. The reverse directory was the equivalent of hacking, in those days before the mobile phone. <br />The other thought is the extreme irony of Mr Dacre proposing a register of accredited journalists.<br />The Independent, of all publications, said Mr Dacre was right that the idea that journalists should be licensed by the state is repellent to the fundamentals of press freedom.<br /> But there is merit in his suggestion for a body replacing, or sitting alongside, the existing Press Complaints Commission, which would be charged with the wider upholding of media standards.<br />One of its functions might be the issuing of a press card which could be suspended or withdrawn from individuals who gravely breach those standards.<br />This used to be the preserve of the National Union of Journalists, an organisation that The Daily Mail has always loved to vilify, or ignore.<br />In fact the whole newspaper industry has fought to undermine the NUJ, on the grounds that having got rid of print unions, publishers and owners dreaded the resulting soaring profits being watered down by a strong and militant journalists’ union.<br />Just how successful this marginalisation of the NUJ has proved is illustrated by their almost total absence from the considerations of the Leveson inquiry.<br />So why would Mr Dacre now appear to back a move his organisation has spent years undermining? The Independent has an interesting theory.<br />Dacre's model could move the sanctions to journalists, rather than their employers. In his evidence in relation to barring non-press card holders from events, Dacre commented: "It is my considered view that no publisher could survive if its reporters and writers were barred from such vital areas of journalistic interest."<br />This implies major organisations should sue only accredited journalists. If wrongdoing was found in a paper, it could be a matter for the journalist and the press card regulator. The writer would lose his or her press-card. The paper would dismiss them and express regret at their actions.<br />Whether this has been thought through as the way ahead by Mr Dacre and his advisers, it is impossible to tell.<br />The NUJ had a very strict, but sensible, code of conduct. If it had been allowed to play a role at the heart of the media, particularly national newspapers, it is interesting to speculate whether hacking and its associated excesses would have ever been allowed in the first place.Mike Gloverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13884064052787404854noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8286671619753453873.post-56639757891052272822011-11-17T11:21:00.000-08:002011-11-17T11:23:42.211-08:00Reflections on Media regulationTHE annual conference of the Society of Editors was held this week at Runnymede on Thames.<br />The event is always on the home turf of the outgoing President, whose term runs from conference to conference. So Robin Esser, executive managing editor of the Daily Mail, must live in the leafy suburbs of Surrey.<br />But of course the venue, near where that iconic historical document Magna Carta was signed, gave the Society, true to their hyperbolic trade, the excuse to call the conference Magna Carta II, as if it was starring Sylvester Stallone, said one wag.<br />The name was also the target of extreme Mickey-taking by Justice Minister Kenneth Clarke, one of the guest speakers. He pointed out that the original had nothing to do with freedom of speech, but was rather a stitch up of the king by land-owning barons. The resonance to Press barons was too much of a temptation for Sir Kenneth to ignore.<br /> He was undoubtedly the star turn, not only using his natural charm and wit to seduce a potentially hostile audience, but also getting his message across with maximum effect. <br />This was that the Government had no intention of introducing statutory regulation of the media, policed by some “ghastly Quango” as he put it.<br />But the media in general, and tabloid national newspapers in particular, had to be seen to put their own house in order. The public would not allow politicians to let them off the hook over the recent mobile phone hacking scandal without significant reforms.<br />Hugely enjoyable as the conference was, the over-riding feeling I had was one of déjà vu, followed swiftly by nemesis of the National press.<br />As Editor of the Bradford Telegraph & Argus I was appointed to the Newspaper Society Editorial committee and served on the Parliamentary and Legal Committee of the Guild of Editors, the Society’s forbears, back in 1990.<br />As such I was appointed to the original code committee of an organization called PressBof, a sort of media owners’ cabal which paid for and organized the setting up of the Press Complaints Commission. The committee also wrote the code.<br />It has been added to considerably since, but it was designed to assure the public that journalists and their employers took very seriously their own ethics and standards, which the regional and local media already did.<br />There was such a difference in attitude that there were many times that representatives of the local press argued that they should split away from the Nationals, so as not to be tarnished by the same brush.<br />This opinion was resurrected at this year’s conference, but as 21 years before, it falls flat because of the impossibility of deciding where the dividing line should be. What about big regional newspapers or Scottish, Irish or Welsh quasi-national ones?<br />Another resonance was self-righteous back slapping for the Daily Mail’s new corrections and clarifications column on its page 2. I introduced such a column on the T&A when deputy Editor back in 1988. When I commended it to the distinguished Editors on the code committee, including Sir David English then Editor of the Daily Mail, a couple of years later they looked at me as if I was mad.<br />They were mystified as to why on earth they should draw attention to their mistakes in such a way? Well they seem to have finally realized that a smidgeon of humility and putting the record straight indeed helps cement a relationship with the reader. <br />Whether the public will be satisfied by such gestures is doubtful. Other suggestions included only keeping VAT-exemption on newspapers which complied with the code; a regulated kitemark; and only giving recognition of audited circulation figures, the benchmark for advertising rates, to newspapers which comply.<br />One idea that received no support, even from another guest speaker Chris Patten the new chairman of the BBC Trust, was giving newspapers’ regulation to the broadcasting authorities.<br />Mr Patten said that newspapers, unlike broadcasters, did not have to be impartial. And, besides, broadcasters had to have more sensitive rules because of the power of moving live images.<br />The complexities of deciding how to police the media, without imposing any elements of state control, are truly daunting. The fact that the conference coincided with the opening of the Leveson Inquiry into the behavior of the media just underlined the sensitivities.<br />It was canny of the organizers to also issue the first draft of a report entitled The Test of Democracy by the Commonwealth Press Union at the conference. It highlighted many abuses around the world of Press freedom. It also included a chart that revealed that the United Kingdom is just 19th in a league tale of free media, even as things stand now. Top is Finland.<br />One striking difference between now and 1990 is that then the old Guild of Editors was completely dominated by regional and local Press representatives. They were no broadcasters and a tiny smattering of National Press delegates.<br />Now that is completely overturned. A rough count showed that of 175 delegates, just 37 were from the local Press; 47 were academics and secretariats of organizations allied to the media; 45 National newspaper delegates attended; there were more than 20 broadcasters and the rest were New Media, public relations and representatives of organizations like probation and police with a vested interest in the media.<br />That underlined a point by former Editor Neil Fowler that the whole hacking inquiry was a diversion from the real threat to the media, financial instability.<br />The truth is that the Internet, social media and other innovations have left the Press in a pretty parlous state. Advertising has migrated on-line to such an extent that, not only can the local and regional press not afford to send delegates to such an important conference, but also can’t afford to recruit or train journalists.<br />Arguably the most striking contribution of all was from a young lady who had started as an unpaid intern on a national magazine, progressed to national newspapers and ended up on an important Quango. She said she had never been trained as a journalist and had never even seen the Press Complaints Commission Code of Conduct.<br />Good Grief! Now you know what I mean by the media industry reaching Nemesis.Mike Gloverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13884064052787404854noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8286671619753453873.post-22238553833061576532011-10-30T09:49:00.000-07:002011-10-30T09:50:49.512-07:00Heavy burden of claims for Sir JimmyThere have been an awful lot of claims for Sir Jimmy Savile, since he died yesterday.<br />It is claimed he was the first Disc Jockey to realize you could run a dance to records, as opposed to live bands which had been the normal until he came along. <br />I doubt this. Surely the American clubs had already invented this. David Jacobs played records, as did Pete Murray and others before Sir Jimmy made the big time.<br />Sir Jimmy himself said in interviews that he invented the double deck, allowing DJs to play one record while lining up the next one. That was in the dance halls where he learnt his trade.<br />That has more authenticity and indeed laid the foundations for the current club DJs.<br />I heard someone say he persuaded the man who ran Mecca to bring bingo to this country. Whether this was a good thing, they didn’t say. But again I have my doubts.<br />He was the first celebrity to run marathons for good causes, said some. This was indeed an amazing claim if true, considering the billions of pounds that have been raised for charity since.<br />And he wore his shell-suits and bling jewellery so setting the template for all those fancy-dress fun runs that have also benefitted mankind.<br />But whatever claims were true, Sir Jimmy was indeed a one-off.<br />I met the former miner and wrestler several times, the first time being when I was about 10, around 1960 when my father discovered him in the Glasgow dance halls and brought him to Tyne Tees Television to front a live popular music programme. He had tartan hair at the time, so later hair-styles seemed tame to me.<br />I then heard him on Radio Luxemburg and saw him as launch host on Top of The Pops before went on to front the very successful Jim’ll Fix It for 20 years. This show really set the template for bucket lists, or wish fulfillment for children.<br />It was while he was recording this show that I was sent by the Daily Star news desk – it would have been 1973 or 74 - to persuade him to sign a Christmas card I had also had to buy and dedicate it to a terminally ill girl who had written to the paper.<br />I had to wait outside his dressing room at the BBC’s Shepherd’s Bush studios for a couple of hours before he would see me. He then took the mickey unmercifully about the card I had bought and kept me on tenterhooks for another hour before signing as asked.<br />It was typical of the man that he could be awkward and wary.<br />But he could not be faulted for his devotion to fun and good causes. Not only did he raise £40 million for Stoke Mandeville hospital unit for spinally injured patients, he turned up frequently to give morale support.<br />Less publicly he also spent a day or two a week as an unpaid porter at St James’s hospital in his home town of Leeds.<br />There was so much to admire about the man, it doesn’t matter if some of the tales were garnished in the telling on his death at 84 years old: RIP Sir Jimmy.Mike Gloverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13884064052787404854noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8286671619753453873.post-70013982641713349732011-10-22T08:17:00.001-07:002011-10-22T08:21:18.409-07:00Serendipity triumphsThis is a sneak preview of an article written for Friends of Brewery Arts Newsletter in November:<br /><br />SERENDIPITY is my favourite word in the English language. Not only does it have a lovely sound, but it also has such a positive meaning: “the occurrence and development of events by chance in a happy or beneficial way.”<br />Since I left The Westmorland Gazette, where I was Editor for ten years, I have been running a media consultancy, Lakes & Bay Communications, which keeps me in touch with many friends and contacts in this part of the world. I now have the time and freedom to make links that would not otherwise be made, and hopefully benefit all those involved.<br />Such a series of coincidences certainly came into play recently for The Friends of Brewery Arts.<br />When still Editor I got to know Mike Pennington, owner of Burgundy’s Wine Bar in Lowther Street, which hosted a micro-beer festival the newspaper sponsored.<br />Several years later, in autumn 2010, I went to interview the principals of Littoral Arts who own the Cylinders estate at Langdale, which was the site of the last installation by the German emigree artist Kurt Schwitters. I was preparing an article for Independent on Sunday about the proposed rebuilding of the Cumbrian barn that housed the artwork, at an exhibition of 20th Century Sculpture at the Royal Academy off Piccadilly in London early this year.<br />Ian Hunter of Littoral asked me to find a local film-maker to record the events, which I did. I was then asked to help develop the script for the film, arrange interviews and raise funds. So I went to see Mike at Burgundy’s and he kindly agreed to partly sponsor the film.<br />As a result I found out he was building an extension to Burgundy’s, to include a micro-brewery, and had obtained the recipe for the legendary Auld Kendal beer, originally brewed by Whitwell and Mark, whose brewery became the home of Brewery Arts.<br />In a completely separate sphere of influence I had met Hilary Claxton while being touted to help set up a new branch of the Rotary in Kendal, a venture that didn’t get off the ground. But Hilary and I had kept in touch and she had proposed I get involved in Friends of Brewery Arts, which I was happy to do as a long-term supporter of the venue.<br />I attended the fund-raising night, reacquainted myself with Ian Hoyle, who I had known years earlier through the Talking Newspapers charity, and he kindly invited me to attend a couple of Friends committee meetings as an observer.<br />At the first meeting I attended, I found out for the first time that Margaret Thomas and the Friends were planning a Brewery Story evening, including a talk by historian John Coopey on the building’s time as a brewery.<br />And what is more, by an amazing coincidence, the date of the event was the same week that Mike planned to produce the resurrected Auld Kendal.<br />Without my fortuitous intervention no-one would have made that link. It was then just a matter of persuading Mike to bring the new brew down to the Brewery Story evening so the audience could sample it. Very well it seemed to go down, too.<br />Serendipity triumphed. Perhaps that is what I should have called my company.Mike Gloverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13884064052787404854noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8286671619753453873.post-23929084694995286882011-09-03T09:02:00.000-07:002011-09-03T09:07:37.142-07:00Saving the reporterTHERE is a fascinating conference being held on Tuesday morning (September 6) in London. It is being organized by Westminster Forum an organization which puts key figures of the media industry in touch with law-makers and other interested parties to inform legislation. It is entitled Media Forum Keynote Seminar: News now.
<br />Its stated focus is to discuss key issues in the provision of news, from standards, ethics and trust to plurality and media ownership.
<br /> Its stated context is: “An early opportunity to examine the future policy and regulatory framework for the news industry, ahead of the wide-ranging inquiries into the culture and practices in journalism.”
<br />A very impressive group of speakers includes: Professor Natalie Fenton, Co-Director, Goldsmiths Leverhulme Media Research Centre, University of London; Martin Fewell, Deputy Editor, Channel 4 News; Will Gore, Public Affairs Director, Press Complaints Commission; Mary Hockaday, Head, Newsroom, BBC; Tom Kent, Deputy Managing Editor and Standards Editor, Associated Press; Jim Latham, Secretary, Broadcast Journalism Training Council; Mark Lewis, Partner, Taylor Hampton Solicitors; John McAndrew, Associate Editor, Sky News; Martin Moore, Director, Media Standards Trust; Nic Newman, Visiting Fellow, Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, Oxford University and former World Editor, BBC News Website; Bob Satchwell, Executive Director, Society of Editors and Michelle Stanistreet, General Secretary, National Union of Journalists.
<br /> In the chair will be Rt. Hon. the Lord Fowler and Lord Inglewood, Chairman, House of Lords Select Committee on Communications.
<br /> Attendees will include: Parliamentarians from the House of Lords, officials from Department for Culture, Media and Sport; European Commission Representation in the UK; and the Competition Commission as well as representatives from 3 Monkeys Communications; African Media Investments; Al Jazeera; Arqiva; Associated Press; BBC; BBC Trust; Bloomberg TV; Cardiff University; Channel 4; Channel 5; Free TV Australia; Guardian Media Group; International Broadcasting Trust (IBT); ITN Consulting; ITV; KPMG; Leeds Trinity University College; Reporters Without Borders; Reuters; Schillings; The Guardian; The Times; Thomson Media Foundation; University of Kent; Warner Bros et alia.
<br />With such an august audience I didn’t think they would miss me and besides I cannot afford the cost or time to attend the conference, which is a shame as it is a subject about which I care passionately. Instead I submitted the following in the hope that it can influence contributions, or be logged in the records of the conference:
<br />My main concerns are:
<br />The impact that social media and internet-driven agendas, allied to a desire by politicians and others to manage the media and a spiralling obsession with celebrities are having on reporting standards;
<br />Profit driven news organisations, owned by large corporations whose primary aim is to please shareholders, are cutting back on reporting staff;
<br />Easy regurgitation of press releases is being used to fill column inches in the regional newspapers and inexperienced interns are being used by Nationals;
<br />User-generated material is seen as an easy way of filling space, whether stories, pictures or comment;
<br />Stories are cut and pasted from one web-site to another without any attempt to check their veracity;
<br />Court cases are widely reported by news organisations who were not present and therefore cannot guarantee the reports are fair and balanced - the courts seem unable or unwilling to police this abuse;
<br />The tendency of readers to click on celebrity stories is being used to unduly influence news values on the grounds that “that is what the public is interested in” without appreciation that expectations of what appears in main bulletins or printed products may differ from on-line offerings;
<br />Reporting of real events involving real people are being squeezed out of the news agenda so increasing the gulf between the media and their customers, which may partly explain the plummeting sales of all newspaper types, and perhaps the explosion of use of social media.
<br />The illegal, defamatory and prejudicial nature of comments on the bottom of stories on web-sites is undermining all the traditional safeguards that made free speech reliant on responsibility.
<br />The end result of all these trends is that the role of the reporter is being undermined, undervalued and risks being destined for the scrap heap.
<br />Who then will produce the truthful, challenging, illuminating material for whatever medium?
<br />I offered these possible solutions:
<br />Ask the Government’s investigations into media standards to include these issues;
<br />Empower the courts (of all kinds) to fine organisations for contempt if they report without representation, forcing them to pay reporters who do attend for any material used;
<br />Proceed with plans to make it easier to give independent non-profit making local newspapers charity status;
<br />Find a mechanic to police protecting the intellectual copyright of news reports, to encourage investigative, pain-staking journalism;
<br />Campaign to raise awareness of the importance of the skills and training of reporters to the wider public, so they appreciate the vital role they play in a democracy.
<br />Some of the above seem daunting and even verging on hopeless, but the hacking scandal and its aftermath may just give a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to address these important issues.
<br />Mike Gloverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13884064052787404854noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8286671619753453873.post-4337292410117903062011-07-24T02:13:00.000-07:002011-07-24T02:16:11.888-07:00Norway massacres expose media shortcomingsAfter all the mobile telephone hacking coverage over the last month, the media really need no more calamities. Newspapers in particular need to show level-headed awareness of the public’s mistrust, show they are responsible and get it right.<br />So what happens when a major news story comes along to divert us all from the navel-gazing, self-destructive hacking coverage? The media make a complete lash up.<br />The Norwegian bomb and shooting tragedy not only exposed the limitations of newspaper deadlines, it also exposed the degree to which speculation and downright guesses have replaced real news coverage. But worst of all it highlighted Islam-phobia of the crudest kind.<br />The worst performance came from the Sun, just the publication which had the most to gain from showing restraint in the wake of the News International scandal. Their headline on Saturday was Norway’s 9/11. It wasn’t September 11th, or even November 9th. There were not 3,000 dead. No plane flew into a building.<br />But of course the message they wanted to portray was that Muslim terrorists had struck in Europe. In this respect the Sun was no worse than the BBC who for hours on Friday afternoon and evening was parading expert after expert to say the bomb attack showed all the signs of Al-Quaeda.<br />Then when the shootings on Utoya became apparent, we were all reminded of Mumbai. There was much speculation about the attacks being Libyan revenge on the Norwegians for that country’s support of the rebels trying to overthrow General Gaddafi. This all turned out to be nonsense, as we now know.<br />It wasn’t that late on Friday night that it started to dawn on everyone that the man responsible for the two massacres was a lone, Nordic-looking man in a police uniform. But that didn’t stop the Northern Editions of the National newspapers getting it horribly wrong on Saturday morning, by which time their readers knew the awful truth.<br />The BBC spent most of Saturday trying to repair the damage to its credibility, with justified examination of Anders Behring Breivik’s Christian fundamentalism and right-wing views.<br />Fundamental Christians is not a phrase that crops up often in media coverage of terrorism, in marked contrast to the phrase fundamental Muslims.<br />I have had many challenging discussions with Muslim friends over the years about the way the Media seizes upon the fact that terrorists are labelled with the Islamic soubriquet.<br />“Why does the media always revel in calling terrorists Muslim when most followers of the religion are decent, law abiding citizens who find terrorism abhorrent?” they ask. It is a hard question to answer, especially when Irish terrorists were rarely labelled Catholic or Protestant, or Christian for that matter.<br />So when Sunday’s newspapers came out it was interesting to see how the newspapers would approach the story now they had the whole picture.<br />Well Norway’s disaster was displaced as the lead by Amy Winehouse’s death or Daniella Westbrook’s newly found Christian beliefs. The comprehensive coverage of the events of Oslo and Utoya was largely taken up with detailed descriptions to show the full horror of the events.<br />But there was very little examination of Breivik’s motives and background. The Guardian web-site was a notable exception, going for a line about his links with British right wing groups, the obvious follow-up in my view. But even they down-played the Christian angle.<br />The media was probably right not to labour his Christian beliefs, as no right-minded follower of the teachings of Jesus Christ would do what Breivik did, just as most Muslims would be horrified by the actions of fundamental terrorism by people who follow their religion.<br />It is no wonder so many young Muslims feel alienated by the British media. Let’s hope the headline writers remember Norway’s example when the next outrage is executed by a mentally-deranged loner or small group. I wouldn’t bet on it though.Mike Gloverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13884064052787404854noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8286671619753453873.post-9433662284439170982011-07-06T03:02:00.000-07:002011-07-06T03:03:00.287-07:00Hugh Grant takes moral high groundNOW that the BBC and The Guardian have forced the rest of the media to wake up to the hacking scandal, it is time to return to this subject.<br />I have written before that an Editor ought to know the strength of the source of a story that is being considered for publication.<br />That is why Andy Coulson had to resign from the News of the World. Either an Editor knows that a story is based on hacking mobile phones, in which he or she is complicit in breaking the law, or not, in which case the Editor is not doing the job properly.<br />At first sight, Rebecca Brooks, or Ward as she was when she edited The News of the World before Coulson, and later The Sun, seems to be in an untenable position.<br />As chief executive of News International, the publishing overlords of the two Murdock red-tops, she has now sent an e-mail to all staff saying how appalled she is that murder victim Milly Dowler’s mobile phone was hacked by a private detective working for The News of The World. She pledged that every effort would be made to get to the bottom of this allegation.<br />Her move comes the same day that it was revealed that the families of the Soham murders may also have had their mobiles hacked, when Ms Wade was editor.<br />Roy Greenslade, a leading media commentator, and himself a former red-top Editor, has called this e-mail disingenuous.<br />It is difficult to disagree with his analysis. Whether she knew of such activities or not, she was culpable.<br />The British Press is one of the most competitive industries in the world. Dirty tricks have become endemic in its fierce culture. A former Sun journalist once told me the only editorial policy worth telling journalists to remember was: Get it first, but first get it right. He might have added the adverb: Legally.<br />The absence of this qualifying word from the culture of national newspapers has led to subterfuge, bullying and bribery becoming common practice to lesser or greater degrees, depending on which newspaper journalists work for.<br />Actor Hugh Grant was on 24-hour television last night arguing for a public inquiry not just into the actions of journalists, but also the police for failed previous investigations and politicians for being too buddy with newspapers, particularly Rupert Murdoch’s. He called it a cosy cabal.<br />He has long led a campaign for protection of privacy, which until recently has been largely restricted to celebrities like entertainers, footballers and politicians.<br />It is interesting to see where this shift in public opinion may go, with England footballer Rio Ferdinand’s legal action against the Sunday Mirror for reporting his alleged affairs being a good yardstick. It comes to something when Hugh Grant comes to represent the moral compass of the nation. But now that ordinary people are seen to be victims of the phone-hacking scandal, I suspect he represented the views of most of the public. We live in interesting times.Mike Gloverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13884064052787404854noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8286671619753453873.post-102736119406276172011-07-03T05:12:00.000-07:002011-07-03T05:14:24.774-07:00Protesters mingle with shoppersTHE sun shone and the heat of the midday sun made sun cream advisable as the protestors marched down the main shopping mall.<br />But this was not Syntagma Square, the focus of the Athens riots against austerity measures by the Greek government.<br />It was the charming market town of Kendal, on the fringe of the English Lake District. Being shire country, petrol bombs and stone throwing were replaced by whistles and slogans shouted over loud-speakers.<br />There were just two unarmed police officers to ensure the health and safety of the marchers.<br />But no-one should mistake the civility for lack of passion or underestimate the resolve of the people giving up their Saturday lunch-time to make known their anger. <br />The marchers were protesting at thousands of teaching assistants and other council employees having their pay cut by up to 30 per cent in an equal pay exercise.<br />Most of the affected workers are women.<br />A total of 8,000 workers, employed by one of the smallest counties in Britain, have been given notice of being dismissed and re-employed on new terms and conditions to which they object. That represents half of the total Cumbria County Council workforce, including everyone from social workers to cleaners. <br />Westmorland and Lonsdale MP, Tim Farron, who joined the march, has warned that the council faces a tidal wave of employment tribunals over the plan for force through a new pay matrix under the single status scheme.<br />Single Status is the title given to a national agreement between the Labour Government and trade unions back in 1997, which aimed to harmonise terms and conditions of service for public employees, removing any unfairness in pay and rewards arrangements.<br />The council has already paid out £40m in back-pay, compensation and legal fees, as a result of the exercise.<br />Teaching assistants from across the county handed over a petition signed by over 1100 local residents to the county council asking them to think again about the single status plans. But the petition was ignored by the Conservative-Labour coalition that runs Cumbria.<br />Children’s Services cabinet representative, Liz Mallison, said their roles were being reviewed by head teachers, but the dismissal letters would stand. <br />MPs from across the county decided to write to every other English local authority to ask them for details of their implementation of single status. To date around fifty replies have been received – all indicating that there were either no pay cuts or only minor pay cuts to teaching assistants salaries.<br />Mr Farron, Liberal-Democrat national president, has written to the leader of Cumbria County Council asking him to call off the deeply controversial and unpopular single status programme. <br />“I’m sure that this shows that single status is supposed to be a rigorous exercise that harmonises job roles, terms and conditions. It is clear after the conclusion of stage three appeals that there is widespread confusion and dismay amongst county council employees and each section of the process has been rushed, conflicting information has been sent out by your authority,” he wrote. <br />Most of the staff affected are represented by the public services union Unison, which helped organise yesterday’s march, even though they did not join Thursday’s day of action.<br />It says it may ballot members for industrial action over Cumbria County Council’s controversial single-status pay review. It says the job-families approach used by Cumbria County Council, which groups together people doing different jobs, is “inherently unfair”.<br />The average reduction to salaries of the exercise is £3,390 a year. Cumbria’s 3,500 teaching assistants are among the losers. Full-time teaching assistants currently earn between £14,700 and £16,800 a year. The typical salary is likely to fall to £12,500 once single status is implemented.<br /> Employees subject to national agreements like teachers and fire-fighters are not affected.<br />The teaching assistants have struck an emotional chord with the public because in Cumbria they have been given particular responsibility for children with special needs, meeting parents out-of-hours, adapting curricula to suit their charges and preparing for Ofsted inspections, some working up to 50 hours a week to do so.<br />A Cumbria County Council spokesman was unrepentant at the letter saying that it was the correct procedure.<br />“Under single status everyone was reassessed on the same basis in a matrix of jobs, so that there can be no unequal pay claims, which previously cost the county £40 million.<br />“Everyone is then offered new terms and conditions. If people sign the new contract, that’s fine and it becomes active on October 1, 2011.<br />“Those staff who haven’t signed, for whatever reason, then we have to give them 90 days notice, which is why the letters are going out now.<br />“If they turn up for work on October 1, whether they have signed or not, then by default they are accepting the new terms and conditions.”<br />Human Resources experts warn this strategy could lead to claims of constructive dismissal by those who quit instead of accepting the changes.<br />One of the affected teaching assistants at the march of around 80 people in Kendal was Sue Ireland of Burneside, who has worked at Sandgate School for 18 years.<br />“The way Cumbria has implemented single status has been an absolute farce,” she said. “We were all asked to provide evidence of why teaching assistants should be one a higher level of pay, but then we weren’t allowed to attend our own appeals.<br />“We are not militants. We love our jobs and being there for the children. Cumbria is just devaluing our jobs and professionalism after years of training.”<br />Mr Farron and the speakers pledged that their fight would go on.Mike Gloverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13884064052787404854noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8286671619753453873.post-8238139861702103282011-06-21T06:02:00.000-07:002011-06-21T06:03:23.372-07:00Making radio wavesTHE LOCAL MP is expending more of his considerable energy trying to save BBC Radio Cumbria from the cuts that the corporation is having to make.<br />He says the BBC has suggested in its ‘Delivering Quality First’ document that many local programmes could be replaced and only a skeleton local service be maintained.<br />The BBC is already running pilot schemes for this kind of programme-sharing service in the south-east of England (for drive time on Radio Surrey, Radio Kent and Radio Sussex) and Yorkshire (for mid-afternoon on Radio Sheffield, Radio York and Radio Leeds). <br />Mr Farron, the Liberal-Democrat member for Westmorland and Lonsdale, argues that BBC Radio Cumbria has a unique role in providing news and information county-wide and has been an extremely important source of information for Cumbrian’s during times of crisis such as the 2001 Foot and Mouth outbreak and 2009 Cumbrian floods.<br />Unfortunately that assumes that Cumbria needs a county-wide service. Despite almost 40 years of propaganda there is still little evidence that people in Barrow want to know what’s going on in Carlisle, or people in Kendal care about what happens in Workington.<br />Of course there are examples, like the two cited by Mr Farron, of wider interest, but when that happens the national and regional services are adequate. The rest of the time, Radio Cumbria trots out a never-ending stream of trivial tittle-tattle, more often than not based on national magazines and surveys, and parochial news. <br />Mr Farron recently wrote to the Chairman of the BBC Trust, Lord Patten, to express his concern about the proposals. He is now asking local residents to email the Director General of the BBC, Mark Thompson, to let him know their views about the plans to axe Radio Cumbria.<br />A composite service provided for the old county of Cumberland, lumped in with Newcastle and Durham; and for the old county of Westmorland and Lancashire North of the Sands, based in Preston, would far better reflect the actual loyalties and interests of the population.Mike Gloverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13884064052787404854noreply@blogger.com0