As the week has unfolded journalists, commentators and families of those that have fought for justice since the tragic events of April 1989 have managed to find words to describe the indescribable. On Tuesday 26th April 2016 a fairly inconspicuous glass building in Warrington was the incongruous home to the Hillsborough inquest rulings that vindicated, emphatically, the families’ 27 year fight for justice
Why the rise in recorded violence matters
Today’s crime statistics show overall crime continuing to fall - down by a further 7 per cent - as measured by the Crime Survey for England and Wales (CSEW). Despite the continuing omission of online crimes from the survey (which the ONS promise will eventually be addressed), there is little doubt that we are safer overall than we were 20 years ago, with crimes in nearly all categories continuing their historical downward trend. Moreover, public concern about crime has fallen to its lowest level in 25 years.
Breaking and entering public consciousness
Alarms. Dogs. Lights. Nosey neighbours. PR agencies have for years suggested different ways to scare off burglars in order to drum up business for their clients in security and insurance. Now the Home Office is having a go, hoping to market to a sceptical public one of its products as the latest scourge of the housebreaker. Introducing all new Police and Crime Commissioner elections…
Would you take advice from Abraham Lincoln?
Communications advisers who not only know how to deal with the inevitable issues and pitfalls but an agency that can spot them at a thousand paces and put in place a plan to deal with them before anyone else has finished their morning coffee.
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The referendum debate: safer in or out?
On Sunday, the Work and Pensions Secretary, Iain Duncan Smith, opened up a new flank in the ‘Brexit’ argument: that staying in the European Union (EU) would leave us vulnerable to Paris-style terrorist attacks. This followed several days of briefing from Number Ten and other cabinet ministers that the UK would be both ‘safer and stronger’ staying in the EU.
And the fact of the matter is…
Jon Clements, Director of Communications and Campaigns, on why mastering your data leads to better communications. Earlier this month the New York Police Commissioner, Bill Bratton, announced that his officers were going to stop people sleeping on the city’s subway system. Not rough sleeping, just sleeping – tired shift workers, exhausted parents dozing on the way home etc. It was a crime prevention measure, he said. It was an unusual enough move to make waves on this side of the Atlantic.
HMP Spin
Devising a ‘handling strategy’, particularly for a prime ministerial announcement is a test of anyone’s mettle. It stretches relations between journalist and adviser, and calls for a large amount of trust and a certain amount of luck. Like a complicated dessert recipe, its success relies on timing and the quality of the ingredients, and if you get it right you’ll be rewarded with the most delicious result.
A twenty year sentence – policy behind Cameron’s prison speech
Monday’s speech on prisons by David Cameron is a significant event in and of itself coming as it does two decades on from the last time a Prime Minister gave an address on this subject. Ever since a young Tony Blair tore into Ken Clarke for being ‘soft’ on crime, the subject of ‘prison reform’ has rarely been thought to be a vote winner...
If strategy is God, the Devil is still in the detail
The photocopied leaflet came through my letter box on Sunday morning. An appeal from my local police for witnesses to a rape committed half a mile away on New Year’s Day. The following thoughts went through my mind...