Media

A slight change to the normal rules of engagement for this latest post in our ‘Right to reply’ series. Whereas these posts normally take issue with what your Coffee House baristas have written, this one takes issue with the post by the BBC’s Jon Williams that we put up yesterday. It’s by Al Jazeera’s Ben Rayner: In wars reputations of whole news organizations can be made or broken very quickly. And the spin on the result is almost as important as the reality. Undoubtedly the BBC took a fearful kicking in the press over its coverage of the fall of Tripoli in August. To the British papers, Sky’s Alex Crawford

For those who care about free expression in the UK, and particularly the reform of our invidious libel laws, this is a crucial week. Today and tomorrow, the UK Supreme Court hears the Times’s attempt to overturn an appeal court ruling in a libel case brought against it by Metropolitan Police officer Gary Flood.   On Wednesday the Joint Committee on the Draft Defamation Bill produce its first report. There are grounds for hope that it will suggest strengthening some key areas, paving the way for full legislation early in 2012 — if the government can be persuaded to find parliamentary time. They should, as this will be a win-win

Yesterday was a rare good day for Andrew Lansley: the Health Bill survived its trial in the House of Lords. But there are no fanfares in this morning’s press for the near-moribund health secretary. The Times, The Telegraph, The Independent and The Mail all lead with the story that 50 per cent of English hospitals fail elderly patients according to the Quality Care Commission. Lansley may have thought that his struggle was with nit-picking peers, who are determined that he, as the secretary state, remains ultimately accountable for the NHS in the letter of the law. But, maintaining the standard of NHS care is his real battle. The irony of the

Andrew Lansley will arrive in Manchester having been chased up the M6 by a flurry of negative stories about his NHS reforms. The Guardian has gone to town on the news that the Lords Health Committee has expressed concern about Lansley’s plan. Their reservations stem from Shirley Williams’ concerns about the diminished role of the secretary of state; she worries that this will dilute accountability over the health service, which she views as unacceptable given the vast sums of money the secretary of state controls. The Lords will debate these matters later this month and amendments are expected to be tabled. Elsewhere, the British Medical Association has also fired another salvo

The papers report that Eric Pickles has beaten Caroline Spelman: bins will be collected on a weekly basis. Back in June, James reported how the DCLG and DEFRA were opposed to Pickles’ plan and that Spelman, who once advocated weekly collections in Opposition, had gone Whitehall native. It was a test, James said, of the government’s ability to master its civil servants. Pickles was very closely associated with the pledge and the impasse threatened to damage his burgeoning reputation in office. Now he is gloating in his hour of victory. “I may make passing reference to the scheme in my speech,” he told the Today programme in that garrulous manner

Kelvin MacKenzie reveals in tomorrow’s Spectator that he was interviewed as a potential victim of the News of the World phone hacking scandal. Here’s his story: It was the kind of building George Smiley would have been happy to call home.Anonymous and bleak, it’s the home of Operation Weeting, where 60 officers flog themselves to death every day in the biggest Scotland Yard inquiry in anyone’s memory. I am here by appointment. A charming woman detective has called me a couple of times — when you are a former tabloid editor that’s worrying in itself  — and asked me to drop by ‘at my convenience’ to look at the fact

Thanks to Nadine Dorries’ amendment to the Health and Social Care bill, abortion rights have been discussed a great deal this week – both inside and outside of Parliament. In her cover article for this week’s Spectator (out today), Mary Wakefield says that this debate has revealed a “strange and unpleasant consensus… that abortion is not just a necessary evil, but a jolly good thing.” In the piece, Mary asks “Why are we so keen on abortion?”: “The fact is that unless you’re a fan of infanticide you’ve got to agree that somewhere along the slippery ascent from that little Alka-Seltzer of pluripotent cells to the birth of an actual