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Brian_A

Listed below are comments made by Brian_A between Friday, 16th January 2009 and Friday, 6th March 2009.

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Erratum slip on youth crime 5:04pm on 06 Mar 2009 Disregarding the YJBs possible mendacity, this focus on numbers seems to me to miss the point.

All the evidence is that the quality of the 'behind-bars' experience for young offenders is bad and getting worse.

That's what need to be focussed on.
Ask Ofcom 3:24pm on 04 Mar 2009 How is he going to ensure that rural areas are served with an adequate bandwidth?
Labour's dilemma over Royal Mail 1:18pm on 26 Feb 2009 Of course, this whole issue highlights the pensions apartheid that exists in this country; between the public sector workers on generous final salary pension schemes and the vast majority of private sector workers, who are not.
Was Fred really 'the shred'? 2:39pm on 24 Feb 2009 I have a friend who is a middle manager with RBS - was with Natwest till it was taken over.

The unit he's with had the number of managers cut from 12 to 6. (Probably the work could have been done by 10 before the takeover.)

So for some time now he and the others that have been left have been doing 60-hour weeks to get the work done. The only alternatives were either to skimp the job (and invite inevitable problems when something screwed up) or leave. A typical cautious banker, he won't leave - but a number have. And the service to customers has suffered.

As regards the things Fred didn't shred, it seems obvious it was a case of 'do as I say, not as I do'
BBC News and disabled audiences 5:02pm on 21 Feb 2009 It's simple.

If they can't read what's on a TV screen, how is anyone going to be able to read what is on a computer screen? So the information is of no use to them anyway.

Yes, to me it is PC gone mad.
It's never just 'bad news' first 4:58pm on 21 Feb 2009 [the jobs being lost at Cowley... entailed stories of human pain and shock]

[it's never just a case of us deciding to put the "bad news" first]

Some contradiction there, surely?
Total and the Wimbledon effect 1:35pm on 02 Feb 2009 Mention of 'a giant "aircraft carrier"' is very germane actually.

The two (now much delayed) carriers for the RN are a classic example of what Rose was on about.

Most of the arguments in favour or against them revolved around strategic defence issues, but the reality is that if they hadn't been ordered the UK's capability to build large complex ships would have been lost for ever. As it is, a significant part of our shipbuilding capability (such as it now is) is under foreign ownership.

This is just one example of many where our industrial expertise has been severely diminished in the last decade and where strategic decision-making partly or wholly resides overseas.
"We blame the parents" 11:24am on 02 Feb 2009 Anyone to whom this was actually 'News' has been living on a different planet.

I'd suggest that the majority of parents do at least a reasonably good job of bringing their children up. The problem is with the minority (20%?) where, for reasons the report goes into, the child's upbringing is less than ideal.

And the answer to the problem doesn't lie with exhorting those parents to bring their children up better. That on its own will have no effect.

The answer is to create a social environment where the family unit is strongly encouraged (as in, financial sticks and carrots) and where fecklessness and casual conception is strongly discouraged (again, with strong financial and other sticks and carrots).
Inauguration coverage 3:36pm on 22 Jan 2009 "it was plainly a profoundly moving day to see an African-American installed in the White House"

Why oh why does the BBC repeatedly use this term, rather than the correct 'person of mixed race'?
Green shoots (2) 6:33pm on 16 Jan 2009 I'm another who thought the coverage was over the top.

I'm not a labour supporter and they are guilty of far too much spin and maybe here their chickens came home to roost. Having said that:

- the reporter deliberately set a trap - is that necessary?

- as others have said, why aren't you pursuing the HoC expenses issue more vigorously?

- it's a sad commentary on modern politics when politicians of all parties have to be so totally preoccupied with presentation at the expense of substance.

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