Tuesday, October 07, 2008

Bad News? Where's The Spade?

On the day I joined 350,000 anxious Icesave investors in worrying about our savings, there was also a few stories that you might have missed.

Gordon Brown seems to be preparing for a climbdown on the 42-day detention that was deemed as absolutely vital for the security of the country a few short months ago. The Times reports that ministers are admitting that there is 'not a cat in Hell's chance' of getting it onto the statute books after realising that the Lords would once again be the voice of reason. First David Davis had no serious opponent in his by-election, now it appears he will have no opponent in the House to debate the subject.

The Evening Standard has an article on the botched reform of NHS dentistry. Apparently Ministers had admitted that they had an 'insufficient focus on quality' in their revised contract for dentists which has been criticised in a Commons Health Select Committee report.

I hope that politicians, journalists and bloggers are keeping an eye out for any reports or other stories leaving No. 10 by the back door. We face an impossibly difficult time over the coming days, weeks and months. Nonetheless, Government business does not stop. Neither should good scrutiny.

One clear example of burying bad news was illustrated by the article in the Telegraph. Postman Pat has got a promotion to a sorting office. The programme will now be called Postman Pat Special Delivery Service and Pat has been given a PDA, a helicopter and a stunt bike! I assume that Mrs Goggins has been pensioned off to close her rural sub post office as well.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Bad news re Icesave, good luck with that. I suspect that you may be the first of many more to suffer under this crisis, sorry non-crisis (dont want to worry anyone by saying there is a problem!)

The 42 day law was always doomed and deserved to be so. It is unnecessary and goes against whats left of our democratic tenets.

Reading what passes for a Dentistry service is actually like pulling a tooth these days. The Americans have a running gag about the poor standard of British Dentistry and they dont even have a health service!

I did hear that Postman Pat was to be made redundant but has plans for a new series entitled simply 'Pat'