The PM Glass Box.
The Glass Box is where the PM team meets in at 18.00 every weeknight to discuss the content of the programme.
We try to be honest with each other, but not hurtful, as we talk about what worked and what didn't...what met our expectations and what fell short.
This virtual glass box is where you're encouraged to take part in the same spirit. Tonight's editor Roger Sawyer will read your comments and may well add his own.
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Unfortunately the appointement of Sir Alan Sugar to an advisory role, shows that the Brown Government has not lost any of the Blair desire for spin and celebrity.
If they really wanted to appoint an advisor they should have gone for someone like Dyson or a former head of the UK Patent Office instead.
Celebrity is still paramount to Labour!
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And seven or so unelected Peers in the cabinet.
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While I disagree with everything the BNP stands for, Nick Griffin has been legally elected, and therefore has the right under the British Democratic system to enjoy the same rights as any other member of the European Parliament.
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Eddie did a good interview with the 'anti-fascist' exploring the fascistic way they drowned out Griffin. They make the BNP appear reasonable by comparison to this mob, screaming and missile throwing. What a pathetic performance from whoever she was, sounded like a NewLabour clone repeating the current spin no matter what the question to me shades of Blears. Just as NewLabour have made the election of BNP candidates more likely, this now makes them seem civilised. What a way to win an argument.
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1. JAlexW, would that be the same Dyson who moved himself and his company out of the UK to avoid 'high costs employing UK workers' and personal taxation?
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Hospital Targets
Anyone who's job depends on targets will meet them, but perhaps not in the way intended. Example; A car production line can make 100 good cars a day. Management wants 110 cars a day. The workforce meets the target but now only 90 of the 110 are good.
Hospitals and other institutions can only meet properly designed targets if they are given the resources. That's why ambulances now queue for hours outside A&E depts. so A&E meet their 4 hour target, but then the ambulances can't meet their emergency attendance targets because they are waiting outside A&E.
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ia 5, Yep, that's the Dyson. Maybe he could be made a Lord so that he could be put in the cabinet.
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So the way the radical left oppose a democratically elected parliamentarian is to shout him down and throw missiles at him?
And people wonder why the average white working class family doesn't think its' voice is being heard!
Nice interview Eddie, but I think you let her off lightly. And where were the MPs protesting about protecting free speech? Or is free speech just for those who say what the people in power and their violent fringe mobs want to hear?
A dark day for democracy in many ways.
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Eddie Mair was completely unbiased and impartial towards the BNP during his interview with the woman from Peace? tonight - unlike his colleagues from Today, James Naughtie and John Humphreys who always treat Nick Griffen with contempt. As a listener I do not want to know the views of the interviewer and if I do then they are not doing their job properly. Congratulations Mr Mair.
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http://www.118800.co.uk/faqs.html
this sucks - the free phonenumber is chock-a-block and I'm now stuck in queue.
why should I have to send a text which I PAY for just to opt-out of this service ?
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This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the House Rules.
The Mobile Phone Directory service can be found on 118800.co.uk (took quite a while to track that down). As others have commented in various pieces about this new service recently, there appears to be no way to opt out that doesn't cost the opter money. terrible. They appear to be based in Reading. If I can find out where, I might try and walk in to their office and hand-deliver an opt-out instructoin :-).
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Like the ordinary suffering man in the street I'm fuming about this CONmenactivity Directory and willing to step up to the line and throw eggs at it.
Regards Mick
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I hope those people throwing eggs at Nick Griffin were careful to make sure they only used the whites ... don;t want to upset the pooor love!
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My son was married in Chiusi Tuscany last week. In Cafe Venezia had longish chat with owner Stefano and his friend Maurice. He, Maurice made the point more than once that he was't racicst but just wanted Italy for Italians. He made the comment that once in , from Africa, no method of removal plus State benefits etc. Can't blame them.....go to Pisa and it's full of street sellers.
Best wishes to Niels from Carol at Chorleywood Tennis Club.
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Now I am absolutely furious !!
After waiting an age for my call to be answered, I thought that it would just be a matter of giving my phone number and that would be the end of it.
Oh no !! They wanted to take my name AND address and then 'call me back' to confirm I wanted my number to come off.
'Or it could be anybody's number that you are quoting'.
Thanks PM for bringing this to our notice - this sucks hugely, because they are using a number of techniques and relying on customer inertia and apathy to stop people removing their numbers.
I am spitting tacks at how angry this makes me !! Connectivity can take a running jump as far as I'm concerned.
And the way the site says 'we don't think you will get too many sales calls' !!
Uggghhh !! One 'sales call' is one too many - make a stand Froggers and make sure this information is passed round as many people as possible and put the kibosh on this attempt to invade our privacy - yet again...
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Our "uphold democracy and freedom" protestors...Today they're throwing eggs, tomorrow they're throwing stones, next week they're throwing bombs...
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Australia denied the "white Australia immigration policy" for many years. It is now a multi-cultural society, which many Australians embrace but, like it or not, multi-cultures do cause racial tensions. I am often shocked when I return there to find just how racist it still is.
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Whoops! Wanted to add that these new tensions and problems do not come as a surprise to me but I am glad that the government and police are doing what they can to sort it out.
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It's a (rather unfortunate) reminder to us to check whether we've ticked the opt-out box when we supply our contact details to any company, service etc which demands them.
Less of a nuisance in the end than having to ask to opt out later.
(Sigh...)
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lordBedd, are they playing Vivaldi or Greensleeves and reminding you that your call is valuable to them and you will be answered shortly? That's as infuriating as the waiting.
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18. Lady_Sue, aren't you conflating multicultural and multiracial? Multiracial is fine, Britain has been multiracial for thousands of years, multicultural is dangerous and was invented by the PC newlabour clones.
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A big response on the blog to Eddie's questioning of the demonstrator involved in the egg-throwing protest against the BNP. But why is the moderation process so slow? Eddie asked for listeners' views, but most of the responses did not appear online before the end of the programme.
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This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the House Rules.
This Connectivity nonsense is another 'Phorm' fiasco in the making because these companies don't realise how highly we value our privacy, and think they can bandy our data about without us even caring.
And they think that THEY should decide whether our data should be on their computers or not. There are also personal security issues related to this now that all phones are 'trackable' via applications designed for this purpose.
These changes seem incremental taken separately, but can become invasive in a way we don't appreciate when they are aggregated together.
How come we are only finding out about this now, when it is almost too late to do anything about it ? Google search for 'Connectivity' doesn't even bring up their website for instance. Now why doesn't that surprise me..
Disgraceful !
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Frances O - worse, there is no music, just a 'high repeat frequency' message that your call is held in a queue [you don't say..]
I should phone them now, though, before the news in all of tomorrow's papers and the phone lines are jammed with millions of 'opters-out'.
Of course, one can send a text, but I object in principle to paying my OWN money to remove a number from a data base I didn't ask for it to be added to !!
And if we all phone their free - phone number it may make them think twice about imposing such a ridiculous scheme on us. So get dialling before they change it to an 0870 / 0845 number stealthily.
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I don't know the dates but in my memory many famous politicans have suffered the same fate so it seems he has arrived. Putting him to the head of the news does not seem a good way to show our horror of his being a representative of our country.
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when is someone going to bring petrol prices into the reckoning. Petrol in our area are now from 99p upwards. why is this happening? whats being done to stop this slow increase day by day.
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A report on Reuters says that Russia, China, Venezuela and Iran are using their mineral billions to undermine democracy in the West. I suspect their agenda is far more chilling than that of the BNP which will never attain a serious position of power anyway. They'll be too busy going backwards and forwards to the dry cleaners to cause too much mischief.
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so you're going to have a vote on different possibilities of reforming Parliament but you're going to choose what those possibilities are? How about Annual Parliaments?
Isn't this part of the problem - finding a way of making things better when most people will each have different solutions. I reckon just putting expenses claims on line will be enough to solve the allowences problems in the long term, although clearly in the short term people want to see some kind of lynching.
This business about particulates in cars - I read in the Saturday Telegraph 'Honest John' section that Vauxhall diesels have filters on them to remove these particulates, and that these filters fill up unless they are cleaned, apparently by driving at speed for fairly long distances on a regular basis. Is this a good thing? According to the article cab firms are switching to petrol cars. Good for children but perhaps diesel manufacturers should find a different way of solving the problem, or perhaps the government should make diesel more expensive.
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22. Invisibleatheist, how can muliticulturalism be dangerous? I am a christian who believes in learning about other peoples cultures/beliefs & have over the years had my life & understanding enriched by other people & their cultures. I hazard a guess that you are not racist, however to proclaim a multicultural society as being "dangerous", could amount, in my opinion, to be a racist comment. I do so hope I am wrong....
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I placed a post onhere at approx 5.40 pm regarding Mr Mair's excellent handling of the anit fascist lady. I did see that is was "with the moderators" but I cannot see it here and I have not seen any mention of it being rejected.
Can someone tell this "newcomer" how things work here, please?
Tx
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invisible...@ 4
I agree with you wholeheartedly.
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Re Connectivity and my agreement with all the comments below: why PM did we not get a website address from you. Usually the BBC ensures that there are links from the programme page to contributors' websites - but not in this case. Google does not trace it. So why all the secrecy? Well done to others who have persisted with the phone number (which my service provider charges for anyway). Thanks PM anyway, for highlighting this abuse.
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This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the House Rules.
As regards the program today.
"Tell me my boy, do you believe in free speech"...?
"Good... Could I use your telephone"
W. C. Fields
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31. At 7:54pm on 09 Jun 2009, StevieLion wrote:
'22. Invisibleatheist, how can muliticulturalism be dangerous? I am a christian who believes in learning about other peoples cultures/beliefs & have over the years had my life & understanding enriched by other people & their cultures. I hazard a guess that you are not racist, however to proclaim a multicultural society as being "dangerous", could amount, in my opinion, to be a racist comment. I do so hope I am wrong....'
Yes you're totally wrong, and an illustration how the two terms, multicultural and multiracial have been conflated by many, often unthinkingly and sincerely.
Of course one is enriched from other cultures, that's how human society has evolved, and particularly British society which has had influxes for thousands of years starting with the very first tribes in the Neolithic. Why do you think that in modern times it has evolved into British culture, distinct from all others? Then, already being a multi-ethnic or multi-racial society, the political correctness liberal-left newage newlabour chattering class, dreamed up the dogma of multiculturalism as an idea that would show they were not at all racist and suffering from post-colonial angst towards people of a different hue - the working class never had this hangup since they didn't profit from slavery or empire like so many of today's ruling families did.
What multiculturalism amounts to is apartheid. Remember that? I do, I campaigned against it in the sixties. The UK has engineered the setting up of cultural/racial ghettoes, and encouraged immigrants to join theirs. Visit one some time and consider whether you feel like you're in Britain.
Integration is what is needed, and intermarriage and complete mixing, that's what we had going before the idiots dreamed up multiculturalism, and now we have a divided society where some members of it don't even speak our language, nor share the values we hold dear and fought long and hard for. Women's liberation and animal rights are the first two that come to mind. Many ethnic communities are virtually at war with each other, and third world conflicts are being imported along with the cultures and religions.
So yes, multiculturalism is very dangerous, and no, that statement is not racist.
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invisableatheist, you have put that very well indeed. I agree with all you have said, I think british people are not racist, but would like immigrants to take on our culture and actually live with us, not agin us. And perhaps not quite so many of them that have joined our shores lately!
And Mr Mair a brilliant interview with the silly egg throwing young woman. You treated her like the child she is. Why they couldn't just ask questions of Griffen, I'll never know. Perhaps they don't really know anything about the BNP but just chant the usual slogans. Sometimes you have to give people enough rope to hang themselves! ; )
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This phone thing: if my mobile service provider passes on to another company my details that they hold in a computer, isn't that a breach of the DPA?
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lordBeddGelert - it's a pity Eddie had run out of aggression by the time he interviewed the phone woman ...
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Eddie, re MRSA on last nights programme.
My best friends husband had a dreadful traffic accident a few weeks ago; arms and legs smashed to pieces, cranial halo and trach. After he was finally brought out of a medically induced coma, I received a message on Sunday morning saying he could receive visitors but only if they were fit and healthy as he has contracted MRSA and the hospital didnt want anyone visiting to get sick !!!
Whilst he is fighting for his life, the hospital appears to be helping to finish him off.
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I noticed in your item about city pollution that no connection was made between 'particulates' and diesels (which are the main culprits) and that where the word 'soot' was required, the more emotive 'carbon' was used.
Come on guys - aren't you journalists supposed to be on your guard against this sort of thing?
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European Ignorance.
Surely the BBC - as the UK's largest 'educator' must take a lot of the credit for our complete ignorance over all things European.
It has been quoted over the last two weeks that the EU provide between 70 & 85% of all new legislation that we have to live by and yet the BBC continue to focus on the most trivial details of the lives of our MP's that evermore seem to have little to do apart from write new statuatory instruments and tax spending/incomes.
I quite agree that recent events should have been thoroughly investigated but surely by focusing on the UK's MP's we are missing out on the 'bigger picture'
Surely the BBC should be reporting nightly from Brussels rather than the House where the actual business of the country is actually carried out.
Is this just laziness on the part of the BBC who's staff enjoy the 'Londoncentric' scene too much or do they not want us to 'become confused' as to who is actually is in control of the country.
Please can we become more informed on what actually goes on in Europe rather than having to wait another five years before we receive our next two weeks of learning.
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Hello All...
Thank you for posting... and thank you for all your comments on the BNP strand. One of the strongest responses to an item we've had... second only, I believe, to the Ross/Brand/Sachs/BBC saga. A huge number of new contributors, which is always encouraging, and a really interesting and reasoned discussion. Lots of emails too, which broadly reflected what's on the PM Blog.
All very interesting, because it was a very late decision to lead with the BNP protest story... or to include it at all. We had some good stuff in the programme, but absolutely nothing that stood out as a lead.
The mobile phone directory got many of you exercised. We're trying to do a follow up on that this evening.
And did you notice the "Flying Pots"? There were two in the programme. A Flying Pot is when you have come out of a pre-recorded interview early and unexpetedly to save time. Because of overruns earlier in the programme and because of a miscommunication in the cubicle, or a mishearing on my part, we were facing a big overrun at the end of the programme, with no live interviews coming up... after the first Flying Pot, which was successful but created some confusion in the cubicle, we had a problem playing out the interview of the Australian High Commissioner to New Delhi... we ended up playing the wrong version (a very long cut) and had to do another Flying Pot.
Probably terribly tedious for you all, but there you have it.
All the best...
Rog
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