by admin | Aug 12, 2021 | Government, Press
‘The best things in life are free But you can keep ’em for the birds and bees Now give me money (that’s what I want) That’s what I want (that’s what I want) That’s what I want (that’s what I want) yeah That’s what I want…’...
by admin | Aug 7, 2021 | international, Russia, whistle blowing
This week Index on Censorship, an organisation campaigning for freedom of expression, held a webinar ‘Whistle-blowers: the lifeblood of democracy’ to mark the launch of the summer 2021 edition of ‘Index on Censorship’ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ixGnSlTq-98 As the...
by admin | Jul 18, 2021 | Government, media freedom, Press, Reviews
Last month saw the publication of a new report from University of Westminster which reveals for the first time how the Independent Press Standards Organisation (IPSO) the press regulator which covers most of the UK’s largest print and online publishers, was set up...
by admin | Jul 17, 2021 | Campaigns, censorship, Government, media freedom, nuj, Press
“Too often the state uses official secrets legislation to hide things that are embarrassing, such as the involvement of the British State in torture or rendition.” Human rights lawyer Clive Stafford Smith and co-founder of Reprieve, a human rights not-for-profit...
by admin | Jul 16, 2021 | Campaigns, freedom of information, international, whistle blowing
Saturday 3 July was WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange’s 50th birthday, but he did not have much to celebrate. The attempt to extradite Assange to the United States was rejected in January, but bail was refused and he continues to be held in Belmarsh prison pending an...
by admin | Jul 16, 2021 | nuj, Tributes
Mick Gosling a friend and comrade for many years died on 7 April. His funeral was held at St Marylebone Crematorium, in North London on 19 April. For many years we were both members of the NUJ Press and PR Branch in London which Mick chaired, and I was secretary....
by admin | Apr 28, 2021 | Campaigns, Government, nuj, Press, Reviews
The other day I came across a surprising quotation from Sir Alan Moses (see below in paragraph 5). He was the first head of the Independent Press Standards Organisation (Ipso), the latest incarnation of what passes for a UK press regulator. Ipso came into being...
by admin | Mar 23, 2021 | Campaigns, Government, unions
Today, 23 March 2021 will go down in history as the day when a titanic struggle for justice finally came to an end. On that day the Court of Appeal overturned the convictions of 14 men sentenced for their involvement in picketing during the 1972 national building...
by admin | Mar 18, 2021 | BBC, Campaigns, media ownership, nuj, Public Service Broadcasting
The Media Reform Coalition (MRC) marked the launch of its Media Democracy Festival this week (see: https://www.mediareform.org.uk/blog/media-democracy-festival-2021) by publishing a new report on media ownership in the UK. It makes depressing, although predictable,...
by admin | Feb 19, 2021 | Europe, Government, international
‘I believe the Union is over-democratised.’ Herman van Rumpuy EU President from 2009 to 2014 (quoted by Perry Anderson in ‘The European Coup’ London Review of Books, 17 December 2020) I was fourteen at the time when on 3 February 1960, Prime Minister and old Etonian...
