Comments for Adrian Short

Comment on Argyll and Bute Council should come clean over online “spy accounts” by Nick Hill

Nick Hill — Sun, 12 Feb 2012 12:21:59 +0000

Adrian, good blog post and I agree 100% with the questions that need to be answered although I suspect that these will need to be answered by Argyll & Bute Council as Ms Smith appears to have been suspended and will no doubt be unable to answer the questions herself pending an investigation.

Important to note that in Ms Smith presentation that the use of ‘spy accounts’ refered to other inviduals reporting information back to the Comms team and that is the context in which it was used in the presentation. I do not have anything to do with the Comms at Argyll & Bute so can only comment at what happened at the event, the content of the feedback forms and any further correspondence relating to the presentation post event.

Thanks,

Nick

Comment on Vincent Tabak trial: You’re a police officer not Max Clifford by Adrian Short

Adrian Short — Mon, 31 Oct 2011 09:12:34 +0000

To save any further confusion, this article isn’t about Vincent Tabak, the police investigation, Joanna Yeates parents’ views or capital punishment. It’s about the police acting in a way that gives the impression that they might not be as politically neutral as they should be.

For the record, and despite being an “authority-hating liberal”, I think that murder is a terrible act and I fully support it continuing to be against the law. There is ample coverage elsewhere of the particulars of Tabak’s crime. Rather than add to it I decided to write about something else.

Comment on Vincent Tabak trial: You’re a police officer not Max Clifford by Gemma

Gemma — Mon, 31 Oct 2011 01:05:13 +0000

It is incredibly revealing that people are getting bound up with issues like this when such a horrific murder has taken place. The police undertook a very complex investigation in the midst of a nation of part-time detectives who all thought right up until the verdict they knew better than everyone involved in the case. In fact, people on various fora “dined out” on this case for a number of months, disturbingly taking every detail to pieces in hobby-like fashion, and now they have the audacity to criticize any part of the parents’ statement. Those people would do well to examine their own motivations before they try to take the moral high ground over parents who have been through the most unthinkable hell and back.

I don’t know of anybody who would be gullible enough to think that simply because a police officer delivered that message, he was expressing anything other than the sentiments of the bereaved family – it certainly didn’t come across that way to me, but then I’m not an authority-hating liberal. Perhaps more time should be spent deploring the crime that made this sentiment necessary in the first place – or are the people who are now getting riled about this statement the same naive people who could not believe that someone with a PhD could be a murderer and defended him to the hilt. Most probably.

Comment on Vincent Tabak trial: You’re a police officer not Max Clifford by Louise

Louise — Sun, 30 Oct 2011 23:32:18 +0000

I don’t think there was anything wrong with the statement.
It is highly understanable from a family who clearly loved their daughter so much and are themselves to live out a life sentence for the cruel, tragic and wicked loss of their girl.

Comment on Vincent Tabak trial: You’re a police officer not Max Clifford by Adrian Kentleton

Adrian Kentleton — Sun, 30 Oct 2011 11:56:09 +0000

Another well-written and well-argued piece, Adrian, about something that needed saying. I have been disturbed for some time about the increasing ‘revengification’ of our justice system, and the police ‘siding’ with the victim rather than staying neutral and doing their job impartially. This is a particular disturbing example.

Comment on Vincent Tabak trial: You’re a police officer not Max Clifford by jason404

jason404 — Sat, 29 Oct 2011 20:01:08 +0000

I thought the same thing when I saw the statements after the sentencing, and this is the first I have seen anybody discuss it (not even in The Guardian).

Comment on Vincent Tabak trial: You’re a police officer not Max Clifford by Minous

Minous — Sat, 29 Oct 2011 16:30:48 +0000

Thank you very much for writing this. I’ve been following this case very closely during the trial and
participate in a discussion about this statement and you actually write exactly how I feel about the FLO reading out this statement.

I personally would not have had a problem with the FLO reading out this statement if that paragraph about CP and the Y’ family’s personal wishes for the murderer of their daughter had been left out.

Comment on Vincent Tabak trial: You’re a police officer not Max Clifford by Alan Law

Alan Law — Fri, 28 Oct 2011 23:51:25 +0000

I felt uncomfortable hearing that statement from the family, it may well have been an obvious reaction to the most evil of circumstances but I felt it was not the role of the police to deliver those words. Perhaps the family will reflect and realise that their emotions were too raw for such remarks.

Comment on Vincent Tabak trial: You’re a police officer not Max Clifford by Anne Guedes

Anne Guedes — Fri, 28 Oct 2011 23:14:55 +0000

Thank you so very much for writing this, Adrian Short ! I was horrified when I read the statement. And besides I think it doesn’t dignify those poor parents whose loss deserves our deep compassion.

Comment on Time to opt out of web censorship by Alan Stanton

Alan Stanton — Tue, 11 Oct 2011 18:07:10 +0000

On the face of it, we – customers, citizens, individuals will still be permitted to opt-in (or is it opt-out?) for a freer web.

But this ignores the fact that many people use the web as a daily work tool, and their employer may subscribe to a commercially run web filtering company. Decisions on which sites to block are made by the companies which run the software.

This spurious “safer” and “cleaner” internet access means staff are incapable of viewing emails containing shocking and upsetting words without fainting away in shock. Words which of course are almost never heard. Except in films, plays, evening TV programs, songs, conversations in pubs, in the street, etc.

It also means that photos with large and possibly “flesh-coloured” areas may be “quarantined”. Even if they are actually of a brick wall.
http://www.flickr.com/alanstanton/2482281877/

Long lists of social media sites are often blocked. This includes Facebook, YouTube and Flickr. In the borough where I live, library staff have had to use their own home computers to access and maintain the Library’s official social media pages.

Transport for London staff have been blocked from viewing my photos and very short videos showing problems in bus lanes.
http://www.flickr.com/alanstanton/5701173319/

Former Stasi members must be emerald with envy.