Category: Politics
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Satire and Parliament
Over the last few days, there’s been a bit of a Twitter-ruckus (is that a word?) about the lack of More 4’s Global Edition of The Daily Show this week. Graham Linehan has full details (and this New Statesman piece essentially regurgitates Linehan), but essentially the episode had to be pulled because the main item…
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Phone-Hacking Media Talk
Last night I spent a fascinating hour at a “live” recording of The Guardian’s Media Talk podcast, presented by Matt Wells, in a packed room with somewhere around 100 Guardian readers in attendance. It was devoted completely to the hacking scandal, and featured some of the key players in the case including Nick Davies, the…
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The News of the World
I’ve been following this week’s events with dropped jaw horror, as finally, after two years of solid reporting from Nick Davies and The Guardian, it all came home to roost for News International and the News of the World. I hate to see people lose their jobs. We keep hearing about how 200 fine men…
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Taking Your Twitter Followers With You
A few weeks ago, Matt Deegan wrote an excellent piece about radio and usage of, and infatuation with Twitter. He argued cogently on many aspects of stations’ use of Twitter. But towards the end of his piece he raised a question that I’m sure many stations think about depending on how their presenters are using…
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All Watched Over By Machines of Loving Grace
I am very excited about this: It starts on Monday 23rd May at 9pm on BBC2.
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WikiLeaks: Inside Julian Assange’s War on Secrecy
Here’s a timely book. I received my copy of this book on Friday – 4th February. The introduction, penned by Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger, is dated 1st February! I know publishing speeds have moved on quite a lot, but it’s still pretty remarkable. The Guardian was serialising parts of this book last week. Whoever is…
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Has The Mail on Sunday Lost England The World Cup?
It’s the question that isn’t really be asked – at least in the media. But did the Mail on Sunday’s scoop last weekend fatally damage England’s chances of hosting the World Cup in 2018? Lord Triesman’s words were certainly ill-advised, and, without any proof, completely unfounded. He was foolish to confide such beliefs with anyone…
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Election Night Live
Well not really live. But expect this particular entry to be updated as the night goes on. It’ll be in reverse order. 11:40 “Haven’t you got a city to run? Well go away and do it. Goodbye!” Paxman to Boris. 11:36 I’ve just realised that I missed the news that my own local MP who…
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Election Coverage Tonight
Channel 4’s obviously not voting Green. They were advertising their alternative election special this evening with a helicopter dangling this ad at lunchtime over Soho. That follows a very expensively produced booklet that fell out of one of my newspapers at the weekend. The thing is, even though I really like the people involved (Charlie…
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Polling Day
Up early to vote. It’s easier in the morning as there’s less queuing.
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Local Politics
My local MP is Labour member of Parliament, Joan Ryan. Not only does she have a second home close to Westminster despite living in a London Borough with tens of thousands of commuters who have journeys of equal of greater distance into work every day, but she also “flipped” her home. The Telegraph piece on…
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Newswipe on the Iraq Inquiry
I love Charlie Brooker’s Newswipe. It’s simply one of the best things on TV anywhere. Anyway – this week they covered the ongoing Iraq Inquiry, and in particular coverage of Blair’s appearance at the Inquiry. Except, the programme couldn’t show any of the the Inquiry. This is because television programmes can’t show clips of Parliamentary…