Given that our media organisations are credulous, cowardly, unimaginative, bullying, and at best venal and at worst deeply corrupt, it is increasingly hard to credit the threadbare ‘freedom of the press’ arguments that are deployed as special pleading every time firmer regulation is threatened. Every time a genuinely thoughtful journalist appears they seem to end up being forced out onto Substack.
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Rishi Sunak and the Conservative Party.
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The length of the article depends how much there is to say, the point is that the correction should have equal prominence.
Mandating the length of an article regardless of how much there actually is to say makes no sense, one line might be all there is to say.
If you did have to double check, the process would be time consuming and expensive - but arguably would soon stop people doing it as brazenly as they do now.
But obviously no party would advocate such a process as they all do it.
Do you consider requiring that anything published is correct, and if it isn't then the error is corrected, to be "too prescriptive"? I would consider it to be a basic requirement which should be a given.
DynamicSpirit
Established Member
I would assume this could be covered by giving the regulatory body the power to require that media also give equal prominence to the correction. There would be a lot of devil in the detail of how you do this though, and the rules would need to be framed very careful to avoid infringing too much on press freedom - which probably means you'd have to restrict it to the most egregious cases of politicians and media claiming something that is clearly and uncontroversially false or misleading. There are also complications - such as what do you do if a newspaper gave lots of prominence to an incorrect claim but also made it clear in its original story that the claim may have been incorrect - so I suspect the regulatory body would need a lot of discretion to deal with things on a case by case basis.
edwin_m
Veteran Member
Rather to my surprise this is pretty much what I was about to post! I guess it would have to be a bit wider than the most egregious untruths (like footage of New York for London?) as these would be obvious to most people. The threshold for intervention by the Office for Statistics Regulation could be a good starting point. As to the media publishing a quote but expressing disbelief, many of them would relish the opportunity to say "I told you so" a few days later.
Steve Tuckwell has started a petition to open a new fish and chip shop in his Uxbridge and South Ruislip constituency, after voting against one in 2019. At this point, I don't know whether to laugh or cry. Who does he think he's going to hand the petition to?
www.standard.co.uk
Tory MP who started petition for local fish and chip shop voted against one in 2019
Steve Tuckwell wants to see a local fish and chip shop in his constituency
www.standard.co.uk
Uxbridge Tory MP who started petition for local fish and chip shop voted against one in 2019
Steve Tuckwell wants to see a local fish and chip shop in his constituency
RISHI SUNAK WITH STEVE TUCKWELL
PA
ROBERT DEX @ROBDEXES54 MINUTES AGO
The Tory MP who has launched a campaign to bring a fish and chip shop to part of his constituency voted against a similar plan several years ago, it has emerged.
Steve Tuckwell, the MP for Uxbridge & South Ruislip and Hillingdon Councillor for South Ruislip, got around 3.5 million views in less than eight hours when he uploaded a short video to social media.
In it, he said he wanted to bring a chip shop to the centre of Uxbridge because it would “support our high street, it will support business and it will help the local economy”.
But former Hillingdon Labour councillor Kerri Prince tweeted a link to a planning meeting from 2019 where Mr Tuckwell had voted down a similar plan.
She said: “Steve was in attendance at the Hillingdon Council planning meeting in which they heard an application for a fish and chip shop in Uxbridge town centre. “He voted against it.”
The minutes of the meeting do not specifically mention Mr Tuckwell’s vote but state the rejecting the application was passed unanimously.
The campaign had already been criticised with several social media users querying where exactly the petition will be presented to in order to encourage the creation of a private business.
Mr Tuckwell’s Labour opponent at the next election, Danny Beales, said he had been canvassing on Thursday evening and heard from no-one “concerned about the lack of another fish & chip shop”.
He added he had “countless conversations with families worried about the cost of living, NHS, and library closure.”
DynamicSpirit
Established Member
The Guardian has a report giving a bit more information about that notorious Susan Hall ad, claiming it was the work of CCHQ and has annoyed some of her campaigners. It also though states that the replacement ad, which removed the footage from New York, still repeated some of the false claims about London. Link
Guardian said:
Thanks to the Standard article in #7687, I found
The election is five weeks away, so is she saying that she will 'listen to Londoners' but only just before an election. She was selected last July, what has she been doing in the meantime? Concentrating on ULEZ will mainly appeal to those living in the outer boroughs (and those living outside of London) as those living within the North and South Circular have had it for some time - she is likely to already have many of their votes.
This and the piece about Tuckwell shows what a poor standard of politician we have (across all parties, I'm afraid). We have elections for Police and Crime Commissioner coming up, other than the incumbent, I don't know any of the candidates or what they stand for. Give me a reason to vote for you. We get leaflets through the door from the man elected as our local councillor, what has happened, what he is doing, how to get in touch and do we have any problems. I will almost certainly vote for him, he can actually be bothered.
Police and Crime Commissioner has always been a joke role to be fair. Typical turnout for the elections is about 10%, and the candidates are usually either failed politicians or malcontent weirdos the parties didn't want in real roles. Even the Tories have basically been trying to abolish them and roll the powers into the remits of mayors.
The other type is ex-policemen/women, who are the worst possible type because they chum up with their mates.
Essentially here in Cheshire we’ve got the Conservative incumbent who is too chummy with his mates, and the previous Labour one who went after Simon Byrne (a useless policeman) but failed and recruited his mate from Warrington to do something not much for a lot of money.
I agree with the concept but the process elects totally unsuitable people in the main.
dangie
Established Member
When the idea of a Police & Crime Commissioner was introduced I thought it a good idea. Then when the voting envelope came through the letterbox, and I saw you were actually voting for a political party, I rapidly changed my mind.
For the position to be worthwhile it must be totally independent and free of political bias. Of course pigs might fly, but I live in hope.
Shame the Tories didn’t follow this logic with Liz Truss
The original plan was that she'd stand as Police and Crime Commissioner for Norfolk, but then Labour stood a threatening-looking lettuce, so she pulled out and tried for something with a less-discerning electorate.
Sounds like the worst kinds of candidate in practice. Lots of people in this position are former police officers looking to promote their mates and pursue grudges.
Elected sherriffs (and even worse attorneys general) in the US mostly seems to have created a grudge-and-politics based legal system, with justice appearing nowhere on the list of priorities. I always thought that was the likely outcome of P&CCs in the UK, so actually the whole thing descending into a standard political farce has been a bit of a good result.
DynamicSpirit
Established Member
What should replace them?
Honest question, but what was so bad about the system we had before? They are, after all, a relatively new phenomena only coming about in 2012. Certainly it seems to me like they're an utter waste of time and resources. Turnout is so poor at PCC elections that it makes a mockery of the idea that they are better able to represent local people's interests when it comes to policing. I can see an argument for the powers being divested within Metro Mayors, but not all forces match the area covered by those Mayors (Cleveland Police and Tees Valley Combined Authority for instance do not match), but I don't see what value a PCC adds as a standalone office.
Purple Train
Established Member
I think you'll find they're a relatively new phenomenon
Apart from that, yes, I don't see much need to "replace" them per se, but, barring that, they should at least be politically independent. Political crime-fighting is about getting a good headline in the Telegraph, rather than actually trying to address the root causes of crime in the first place.
Agreed, you've seen on this very thread people arguing that Starmer was let off for Beergate because of the PCCs party allegiance, similarly that Houchen and Co are getting away with things becuase the PCC is a Tory. That feels quite corrosive to trust in the Police quite apart from the turnout issue.
IIRC it was basically a board of the great and good (mostly local councillors) determining very high level priorities, with funding managed centrally. Overall they'd probably get more effective oversight if they just sent out an annual questionnaire and commited to broadly allocate resources based on the result.
The problem with the previous system was that some chief constables considered themselves to be politicians in the making, and would use their bully pulpit to lecture people on how they (the policeman) thought we ought to behave.
This is the realm of real politicians, who can be judged and elected on this basis.
Policemen (it was always men) like Anderton in Manchester and Blair in London in the past were dreadful people and felt obliged to tell us how we should behave.
Most senior poiicemen/women were better than this, but we didn't hear about them.
Even if the PCC is generally a waste of space/time/effort, if it prevents some of these obnoxious people like the ones I've mentioned getting into a position of power then it's a good thing.
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Fully agree. The first PCC for my old area came up with some mad ideas such as allowing local companies to sponsor equipment such as stab vests and vehicles, in return getting their logo on them.
Police Commissioner plans to raise funds through sponsorship
Police cars, uniforms and equipment could carry sponsors’ logos to raise money for the force under a plan unveiled by Police Crime Commissioner…
Then there was his daft idea to charge those in custody the average price per night of local hotels for every night they spent in the cells...
Elected on a turnout of 14.5%. An utter joke of an election and a post. A lettuce wearing a blue rosette would have been elected.
DynamicSpirit
Established Member
It seems to me the problem is that you do ideally need some way of making sure the police have some accountability to the communities they serve, and for those communities to be able to communicate any concerns they have. But on the other hand, you don't want that accountability to descend into party political mud-slinging. The PCC system errs too much towards the mud-slinging problem, but on the other hand, I don't get the impression that the previous system allowed any community input. As yet I've not seen any suggestions for good systems that are likely to provide the right balance.
Yes, there should be accountability, but I'm not sure why it needs a politically affiliated PCC for that to happen.
The police shouldn't be political, and neither should those that oversee them.
They should police based on the law and the evidence, without fear or favour
birchesgreen
Established Member
I think most people would rather the money spent on the PCC, and their office, election costs et cetera was simply added to the police budget.
The police shouldn’t be political, but why shouldn’t those overseeing it? That’s what we elect politicians to do! They set priorities, hopefully with some regard to public opinion expressed through the ballot box.
How would this board be made up? What advantages do you see having a committee doing it over a single person? (All of whom would presumably expect to be paid or at least get expenses)
Roughly speaking, this is what used to happen. When the geographical areas of police constabularies coincided with local authority boundaries it worked quite well. Over time, that one to one match has been lost with the piecemeal creation of unitary authorities. This resulted in committees with representatives of multiple authorities, giving unclear lines of accountability for the police precepts on council tax bills.