Look out!
This week's iPM is coming live from the HOME OF A LISTENER!
That'll teach her for getting in touch...
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Recent entries
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Thanks for a nudge in the right direction.
Big thanks to Jon, the listener who alerted us just after 5pm yesterday to the BNP mailing list story with a perfectly succinct email, a link and the comment:
BNP Membership list - is this real?
The story had already broken online, but Jon's email alerted us and we passed it on to our colleagues at Westminster. As you've probably noticed it's been all over the news, yesterday and today.Keep those story ideas coming in!
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"Ask the 'working girls' themselves"
The Home Secretary, Jacqui Smith is setting out her plans to reform the laws on prostitution. Paying for sex is likely to become a crime if the sex-worker is "controlled for another person's gain". When the proposals were first mooted we received this.Someone should ask the 'working girls' themselves
When Harriet Harman blogged the issue it attracted a number of interesting comments, like this:
I've been working in the sex business for a long time now and like many, many of my colleages I have never taken drugs nor was I destitute. I am not a victim nor are my clients criminals. I, like thousands of others in the UK, do it out of choice.
Do you have some experience of prostitution, whether as a worker, client, member of a related profession or as a resident living in "red light" area? Share your personal experience or perspective by getting in touch, via the blog, or via email.
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Costa living going up?
You can't get away from coverage of the UK's economic woes and the weakness of Sterling. But iPM listener Robert Hoyle emailed to say that not every angle's been raked over quite yet. He says no one talks about the plight of Brits abroad, especially the retired.
"Pensioners have seen their pensions decrease by 30% this year when paid from the UK."
Last week, the former Europe minister Denis MacShane warned in a speech that expats across the EU would bear the brunt of the credit crunch. "I'm not sure I would even want to be a Brit in Spain. There are already some low-level rumblings in Spain that the ageing end of the British population are demanding the care and attention that older people do."
Heard any rumblings? Been rumbled at?
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Want to make a noise on our podcast?
You've heard the iPM podcast of course. Everyone's listening. Who would miss Charlotte Green's impersonation of Alan "Fluff" Freeman last week?
As a regular podcaster, you'll know that it begins with me saying: "Hello. You're about to listen to a download from the BBC." Then there's a bit of silence. Then I say: "Welcome to iPM..."
We'd like you to fill the silence. We filled it last week with a firework...but we're sure you can do better.
Send your idea or the sound itself (if you're technically minded) to: ipm@bbc.co.uk
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Cell Phones: An Update.
We're hoping you can help us update our coverage of what has been a serious problem in UK prisons: smuggled phones.According to The 2007 - 2008 Independent Monitoring Board annual report for Wandsworth prison published Nov 10th, smuggled phones remain a concern:
Whilst the prison is valiantly attempting to curb the supply of drugs, the issue of mobile phones continues to be ignored by the PrisonService
We reported on the problem of smuggled phones in jail at the end of last year. The IMB report calls for more to be done to limit the use of phones in jail:
For the past three years in this report we have asked the Home Office and then the Ministry of Justice to implement an effective jamming system to curtail the use of mobile phones. We have been promised that trials are taking place but nothing is happening in the large Local prisons to jam the use of mobile phones. Within Wandsworth it is estimated that the drugs trade would be halved if phones were jammed...Phones are not just used to drive the drugs trade in Wandsworth. We have seen a phone seized by Security which had the most graphic and violent images...
The government has promoted the use of BOSS (Body Orifice Security Scanner - see the pic left) chairs to help detect smuggled phones, but the report claims its affect has been limited:
We had very high hopes last year that the BOSS (Bodily Orifice Security Scanner) chair would be used to try and detect more phones being brought in by prisoners. Unfortunately it has hardly been used at all.
There's a response from the prison here. If you know about this issue please do get in touch, particularly if you've direct experience of the problem from within the prison system.
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Another early photo arrives...
"I am regular listener of your morning ipm program, and i am a big fan of your program.
I live in dakar (senegal), born and brought up in a small desert village of india next to the pakistan border. I learn from my mother to wake up early and start my day listening to bbc news ( : I am sending you my morning pic. Have a nice time, Dev"Thank YOU Dev.
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