PCC: Express humiliated the survivors of Dunblane

The Scottish Sunday Express "designed to humiliate" the surviving victims of the Dunblane Massacre the Press Complaints Commission ruled yesterday.

Here's a summary of the original story:

"The article reported that the survivors of the Dunblane shooting in 1996 – who were now turning 18 – had ‘shamed’ the memory of the deceased with ‘foul-mouthed boasts about sex, brawls and drink-fuelled antics’ posted on their social networking sites.

"The complainants said that the coverage had seriously affected their sons by criticising them and unnecessarily drawing attention to them as Dunblane survivors – including by publishing photographs of them – when they had previously been shielded from public view. They were just ordinary teenagers, and the article constituted a serious intrusion into their private lives."

Despite eventually offering an apology (of sorts) to their victims, the paper still insisted on defended it's actions to the PCC.

According to the ruling, the Express argued that all the details they published:

"had been publicly accessible on social networking sites" anyway.

However, in a landmark case, the PCC ruled that the paper had made a "serious error of judgement":

"In this case, while the boys’ identities appeared to have been made public in 1996, it was also the case – as the article itself had recognised – that they had since been brought up away from the media spotlight. The article conceded that ‘no photographs of any of the children have been seen in more than a decade’. They were not public figures in any meaningful sense, and the newsworthy event that they had been involved in as young children had happened 13 years previously."

"Since then they had done nothing to warrant media scrutiny, and the images appeared to have been taken out of context and presented in a way that was designed to humiliate or embarrass them. Even if the images were available freely online, the way they were used – when there was no particular reason for the boys to be in the news – represented a fundamental failure to respect their private lives. Publication represented a serious error of judgement on the part of the newspaper.

"Although the editor had taken steps to resolve the complaint, and rightly published an apology, the breach of the Code was so serious that no apology could remedy it."

I'm still not convinced, the Express is clear who the real victims of this story are though.

Iain Dale gets wheeled out over Boris's Expenses

You always know that Boris Johnson is in trouble when the hapless Iain Dale gets wheeled out:

"Boris has finally got Labour Members of the GLA to agree to all their expenses going online from Monday. This will be on a voluntary basis until it becomes mandatory on 15 July. For some reason Labour members have been very reluctant to agree to full transparency. Tories have, I understand been posting their totals, although not full details, since Boris was elected. Having gloated over the demise of Ian Clement, perhaps they have something to worry about. We are about to find out."

It's hard to know where to start with this, but I'll give it a go.

"Boris has finally got Labour Members of the GLA to agree to all their expenses going online from Monday"

Er, all Assembly Member's expense totals have been online since 2004 and taxi totals have been online since the Assembly was set up.

"For some reason Labour members have been very reluctant to agree to full transparency"

No source is given for this claim. However, I find it hard to trust the word of a man who doesn't even know what "GLA" stands for

"Tories have, I understand been posting their totals, although not full details, since Boris was elected."

Tory AMs have indeed been posting their totals. But then so has have every other Assembly Member. From all parties. For five years.

"Having gloated over the demise of Ian Clement, perhaps they have something to worry about. We are about to find out."

I'm sorry, but has something happened to Ian Clement? Has anybody heard anything?

---

-Update- The leader of the Labour group on the Assembly sent the following email to Iain Dale this morning:

Dear Iain,

I thought I should send you the attached letter and point out that the Assembly's Business Management and Administration Committee actually proposed (without any involvement from the Mayor's office) to publish itemised expense claims on 24 June. This was, you may be aware, the meeting at which the expense claims made by former deputy mayor Ian Clement were investigated and when it was revealed that the Mayor had been personally signing off Mr Clement's claims. I am therefore struggling to see how you can justify your blog post "Boris has finally got Labour members of the GLA to agree to all their expenses going online from Monday".

I'm afraid your statement that "Labour members have been very reluctant to agree to full transparency" is totally false and, unless you can back it up with some evidence, should be amended. Labour members actually pressed for full transparency at the BMAC meeting of 24 June. Also, your suggestion that "Tories have…been posting their totals…since Boris was elected" is wide of the mark and whoever gave you this information was being extremely disingenuous. As I am sure has since been pointed out, the GLA has actually published the total expenses of ALL Assembly members', as well as those of the Mayor and his senior staff, since its inception in 2000. So while it is true that "Tories have been posting their totals since Boris was elected", they - along with every other senior member of the organisation - also posted them for the eight years before he was elected.

In the interests of accurate and honest reporting, may I suggest you amend your blog accordingly and check the veracity of the information you were given.

Regards,

Len

The attached letter to Boris Johnson confirms this sequence of events.

Still no sign of Iain Dale over at the original post.

Ian Clement, Boris, Cameron and jobs for the boys

The News Shopper have been going through Ian Clement's Bexley expense claims:

Among the long list is one for:

November 30, 2007 - Mr Clement treats former Bexley chief executive Nick Johnson to an £86.40 meal courtesy of Bexley Council taxpayers at London restaurant Le Pont de la Tour. Mr Johnson, then 54, had retired on November 4 from his £203,000 Bexley job on ill-health grounds, with a full pension and a six-figure settlement. Just four months later he took a new £125,000 job with Hammersmith and Fulham Homes, an off-shoot of Hammersmith and Fulham Council. No reason is available for the lunch.

A month earlier:

"October 31 and November 3, 2007 - Mr Clement claimed £90.57. Bexley Council said: "We were informed by Mr Clement all three items were incidental expenditure relating to the course". The course in question was the BT leadership course which necessitated Mr Clement travelling twice to the USA and which cost the council £7,000. No detailed breakdown of the £7,000 has been revealed by the council. Mr Clement left the council just months after completing the course."

The £7000 junket to America was cleared by Nick Johnson.

That's the same Nick Johnson who retired on "ill health" soon after, before turning up for a recuperative meal at Le Pont de la Tour, before swiftly moving on to a new job at Hammersmith and Fulham.

Any alarm bells ringing yet? Well they didn't ring for Boris last year:

Oh well I guess you live and learn. By the time David Cameron takes power nationally, I'm sure the Conservative Party will have sorted these problems out.

So who's in charge of all that? Oh yes here he is:

Nick Boles, former head of the Policy Exchange thinktank and a close friend of Mr Cameron.

Yes that's right, the same Nick Boles who was in charge of setting up Boris's administration.

And who later told the Assembly that it would have been too "ball-breaking" to do the necessary checks on Boris's appointments.

Like Ray Lewis. Who launched Boris's campaign. And who David Cameron chose to visit on his first day as leader.

Are you feeling filled with confidence yet?

Boris's new Routemasters will not have conductors

Passengers on Boris's next generation Routemasters will not be able to buy tickets from "traditional conductors" the Mayor admitted today.

A spokesperson said this evening:

"Plans for the new bus still involve an additional crew member."

But:

"The role will not be that of a traditional conductor as almost 99 per cent of fares are now collected through pre paid ticketing. Their job will be customer focused to ensure the safe boarding and alighting of passengers using the open platform, as well as providing information and assistance."

In Boris's transport manifesto he promised to

"[renew] traditional forms by commissioning a 21st century Routemaster with conductors."

and said that we would:

"see the next generation Routemaster, with conductors, running on the streets of London by the end of my first term as Mayor."

However, in January he floated the possibility that the buses could be staffed by Police Community Support Officers instead.

Unfortunately the chairman of the Met Police Federation immediately dismissed the idea, saying that it showed a "complete lack of understanding" of the role of CSOs.

It now seems that Boris's "additional crew members" will in fact be little more than glorified health and safety officers, employed mainly to stop people falling off the back.

And that back may not even be open for half the time.

In the revised specifications issued last month TfL said that:

"Manufacturers have been asked to consider options to allow for the rear platform to be closed off at certain times, such as at night"

Now whether you were a fan of Boris's original Routemaster promises or not, I think it's hard to argue that these two changes fulfill those promises.

Boris promised open-backed buses with conductors, but the buses will be neither truly open-backed nor truly staffed with conductors.

And they're still going to cost us anything between 75 to 110 million pounds extra a year.

That's an awful lot of money for a not-quite-a-Routemaster

So what do you think? Is this a happy modern compromise, or the worst of both worlds?

Boris Johnson "worse for wear" at Pride Reception

Like it's patron, joint founder and long-time champion Peter Tatchell, I didn't receive an invite to the Pride London reception at City Hall last night.

However, through the magic of the internets I did receive the following updates on the night:

One commenter at Pink News concurred:

I understand he was drunk at the reception and could hardly put two words together during his speech!

Why did you not put London mayor drunk a gay pride reception or was the supposed to be swept under the carpet! He was hardly being respectful to us as a community by doing that was he?

Although another thought they should all lighten up:

"I think its a bit rich to describe Boris getting a tad tiddley at last year's Pride as 'disrespectful to the gay community' when literally 1000s of our community can be seen swaying round the streets of Vauxhall and Soho drunk as skunks or high on whatever narcotic is falvour of the week. There is no room for pious monkish twaddle, the Mayor entered into the spirit of the ocassion and had a darn good time. Good On Him."

Commenter Mike thought it was all a bit academic:

How can you tell if Boris is sober or drunk?????

Meanwhile, the content of the speech was less than impressive for some:

@Zefrog agreed:

Ah yes the old stump speech. The ever reliable, ever-repeated stump speech.

So let's all have a watch and see for ourselves shall we? It can't have been that bad could it?

Oh well, at least his heart was in the right place I guess.