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 Mark Frankel will read your comments and may well add his own.
Listen to PM
© MMIX~RS~q~RS~~RS~z~RS~42~RS~)
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Ah, the "Swine-Flu" Box...
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Don't panic!
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Interesting that people over 55 aren't susceptible. Whew!
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ia 3, I won't panic, then.
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Whenever someone announces that the World Health Organisation says something or other, I always say, "WHO?". And then my wife hits me.
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LOL
Women are like that, no patience or appreciation of a good joke repeated.
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Re. tube strike: why not do what they do in Japan?
The employees turn up for work, the trains run to schedule but the passengers travel free.
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ia 6, She is probably downstairs reading about it on ceefax and thinking of me.
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The interview with the chap who does media training was fascinating.
Can I suggest more-blatantly exposing the "A-B-C" and other evasive techniques in interviews so that the public can understand political interviews better?
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If you are a physician for the World Health Organisation......
.....does that make you a Dr WHO?
I'll get me coat.
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Considering that all members and ex-members of the Bullington Club think they are so-clever, including Boris Johnson why don't they drive the Trains (well it cannot be that hard, can it?) and all the Tory MPs who are mostly all millionaires.....in fact, disputes like these just sums up the complete madness of the epoch and the dynamic tension built into it....where even many Football players are now earning millions when most poor 'wage slaves' are earning peanuts...to keep the whole rotten system working every day of their lives....
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Interesting that there was reportedly almost agreement between the union and management until a call arrived from the Mayor, then it all fell apart. Boris playing politics with people's lives? He may find it hard to get re-elected.
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What's happening to 'our' Eddie? Another bullying interview, this time with a Northern Irish journalist who gave as good as she got.
A bit of detail - Eddie seemed to expect that this admirable woman should reveal her sources, and questioned her fears about her safety if she revealed whether she knew the name of someone she'd spoken to.
I feel thoroughly let down by Eddie this week....
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M7 Lady Sue
Are you suggesting that t he staff turn up for work but allow passengers on the trains for free.
That is an excellent idea. LUL lose revenue like normal, public sympathy is behind the unions and the world keeps turning.
Although doesn't this rather stymie the time off for the strikers, there is a reason why they always strike in the summer you know. Plus, doesn't that technically criminalise all of the passengers?
But I love the spirit of the idea, might go some way to restoring public trust in the actions of trade unions
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D_M 8
I wonder... Do you have such fantasies often..?
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No man, theres no evidence that proves using marijuana slows down your reactin times.
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invisibleatheist (3) In that case, I'm going to put myself in isolation for the next four weeks ;o)
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T8-eh-T8@14:
"Are you suggesting that the staff turn up for work but allow passengers on the trains for free."?
Yes! Isn't it genius?
Tube passengers are not disrupted, public sympathy is therefore maintained (enhanced, in fact, everyone loves something for free) and the only losers are the company owners.
It achieves the same result (hitting the bosses in the back pocket) without causing travel mayhem.
I like it.
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Hugh's report was wonderful, as ever. I had to stop what I was doing and sit and listen to him.
Where are the promised photos?
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Richard_SM
Are you here?
You remember your post:
"Ref 36. Sid
"You should refrain from posting information about political electoral systems. You don't understand it yourself. Yesterday you were telling people the BNP MEP's were elected under the 'First Past The Post' system.
"The electoral systems for MP's are quite different to the system for MEP's. You're simply confusing people - as well as yourself."
... and my reply, asking you to point to where I had done such a thing?
I was wondering if you'd come up with an answer yet ...
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Well, I was always told he was a "Rug-ed" fellow...
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/phil-spector-the-bald-truth-revealed-1702647.html
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Okay, this may be a question that's been asked and answered before, but something that's on my mind about the Northern Ireland journalism case: Every time some group claims responsibility for an attack, you hear how recognized "code words" are used. Just how do these code words get to news agencies? If I were to ring up and by chance hit the right combination of words (maybe Fish Teeth Cupboard?) would I be believed? Do news organizations get the current list in the post? What's to stop someone else claiming to be from, say, the RIRA, and issuing a new set of code words? I'm just interested and want to understand.....
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22. Fearless Fred
A partial answer only - in the first instance the code words were invented as necessary not for claiming responsibility, which every nutter would be doing. They were agreed on so that a warning could be given BEFORE the planted bomb has gone off in a public area, so that it could be cleared and human casualties avoided. In a very famous case the instructions were given incorrectly, resulting in carnage, remember? The explosion itself, or the discovery and disarming of the device were the proof of the right people giving the message. When they considered the target "legitimate", as in military or police, they did not bother with warnings, but did claim the responsibility.
There are agreements for special situations involving security between media and competent organs.
I beg you not to try this at home, but if you were to phone a media outlet and say that you are about to com**t an a*t of ter**r, you will discover how well these things have been rehearsed.
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Further to my 23.
It has recently been made open public knowledge by the parties involved that the British governments of every colour have been maintaining contacts and talking to the IRA privately all through the troubles. Even when any such contacts and conversations were robustly denied, as they always were.
So, agreeing code words and then warning the media was simpler than one might think.
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paurina - I think you are failing to understand that it is necessary for Eddie, in an 'adversarial' system to play devil's advocate if we stand any chance of hearing both sides of the story.
For my money something smells fishy about Suzanne Breen's story. She should have set the ground rules on this at the outset.
For example, only meeting 'spokesmen' and not 'culprits'. Okay, they may have been lying, but she could in good faith have relied on that defence.
Her statement about the 'warning call' being 'anonymous' was a masterclass in Clintonesque equivocation and legalese.
Of course, I cannot judge this without having seen what she has written so I will not judge any further what her motives were.
But I would be surprised if they were as neutral as those of John Ware, although he has defended her.
We need to know much much more about the detail of this story. If she was exposing corporate malfeasance, fine.
If she was trying to help bring the 'Real IRA' to justice, that is great. But if the 'Real IRA' thought they were going to be brought to court as an end-result of doing the interview they wouldn't have co-operated. In which case what was the real motive in meeting these men ?
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Sid @ 20,
Sid, I admit to having been similarly confused by the way you had phrased some things. In the AM Glass Box of 9th June I wrote at post number 44:
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Sid @ 19, "Interesting that we haven't heard anyone complaining that our fabulous first-past-the-post voting system 'lets extremists in' - though you hear that quite regularly (and wrongly) about PR."
I think I must be failing to understand the point of what you have said here.
The complaints are because two BNP candidates have been elected as MEPs, I would suppose: those are the extremists people are complaining about as far as I can tell.
MEPs are not elected using our first-past-the-post system. They are elected using a form of proportional representation.
So the letting in of the BNP in this case was under PR, and saying that is so isn't saying it "wrongly", is it?
Would they have got in with a first-past-the-post vote?
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and then at post 49 nikki noodle wrote
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44. I doubt it.
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but I heard no more from you in that thread.
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Thank you for interviewing the A-B-C man - very refreshing to hear, and I hope something comes of it.
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Chris - sorry, I don't have time tio check all threads regularly ...
But the link I put in my post took you to this:
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Me @ 28
And my original post which seems to have caused the confusion referred to Burnley - a County Council seat, but not a European division.
I stand by my point - that extremists can get in via FPTP, which anti-PR people say is a fault of PR.
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Yes, Sid, but surely it is a fault of *both* systems, if fault it is, since BNP candidates have now been elected using both. So saying that PR can let the BNP in is not saying it "wrongly", it is simply stating what has been observed. That was my point on the other thread.
I'm not in principle opposed to PR, I just don't see that it is fair to say that suggesting it doesn't "let in extremists" is to suggest this "wrongly", which was what you said (in parentheses) in the post I referred to. That was all.
You have cleared up the confusion: I now think that you were simply saying something that subsequent events immediately showed to be not-quite-correct, which is a slightly different thing.
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Oh, and further to my 30, the link you posted argued a flaw in FPTP which I knew, both in theory and in wicked and deliberate practise from the days when I was still under the impression that there was any point in playing politics. The unfortunate Horace very nearly won an election on the "free parrots" ticket, under which he had promised to give a parrot to every person who could demonstrate that s/he had voted for Horace, because the IS, IMG, Communist and several other promising contenders split the vote so well between them that he ended up second in the final count. I never saw a man in such a panic! And a year or two later, Kit Kelly was actually elected President of Sussex University Students' Union for very similar reasons. I think he was standing on the "I will wear a leather mini-skirt if I want to so yah boo snibbins to you all" platform, whie the serious parties were so divided that they failed to catch up with the sheer lunacy of his campaign. I don't know how long he lasted; I think he resigned after a couple of months and forced a re-election.
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Chris @ 30:
I think I need to simplify my point still further!
1) Opponents of PR argue that PR will allow extremists, like the BNP, to be elected.
2) Extremists, like the BNP, can be elected under our current system (see the local council elections in Burnley, Leicestershire and Herts).
3) The opponents of PR mentioned in (1) ignore (2).
I don't think I can make it any simpler ...
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Sid, your point in #28 abive is clear enough, and I am perfectly able to see what it was without your needing to reduce it to even further simplicity. It is not the point that I was addressing.
One sentence in your original post, which I have quoted, was in my view misleading. You wrote "Interesting that we haven't heard anyone complaining that our fabulous first-past-the-post voting system 'lets extremists in' - though you hear that quite regularly (and wrongly) about PR."
which is to say
"[we hear] people say this [often and] wrongly [about PR]".
What do they say? That PR lets in extremists.
Do they say this wrongly? No.
The vote for MEPs is done under PR. It let in extremists. Therefore to say that it did so is right.
Therefore to claim that someone saying "it [may] let in extremists" is saying this "wrongly" is incorrect. They are saying it rightly. It may let in extremists. It did.
Simple as that.
Yes, FPTP may let in extremists. I have never argued otherwise (I'd be stupid to do so, since it is clearly a fact). BUT this does not mean that PR may not ALSO let in extremists. One system may be flawed in a particular respect without that making the other system not-flawed in the same respect.
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Charlie 15, Only until she bangs on the ceiling with a broomstick and tells me to get off the computer.
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The trouble with discussing ways of voting is that the longer you talk about it, the longer the posts get.
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With a change in the Upshares/Downshares theme due - how about getting into the spirit of Sorry I Havn't A Clue that starts next week by having a rendering on Kazoo and Penny whistle?
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