Nine-year-old school dinner blogger gagged

15 Jun 2012 | News and features

UPDATE 1.35pm : Argyll & Bute Council have lifted the ban on Martha Payne’s school dinner photography.

Photographs included in the blog of a primary school student’s school dinners have been banned by her local council.

Martha Payne, from Argyll in Scotland, started her blog Never Seconds, “one primary school pupil’s daily dose of school dinners”, to document the food served at her school, and rate them with marks out of ten.

In a blog post entitled “Goodbye” yesterday evening, Martha, known as Veg, explained how she had been taken out of her maths class by the head teacher, and told that she could not take any more photos of her dinners after a headline in a newspaper.

Since she began blogging Martha has used her blog to raise money for charity Mary’s Meals, who set up school feeding projects in communities struck by poverty. The young blogger asked readers to join her “in helping give lunch to children that really need it.”

Martha explained that she was sad that she would no longer be able to take pictures, and receive pictures from followers, and added “I don’t think I will be able to finish raising enough money for a kitchen for Mary’s Meals either.”

Prior to the final post on her blog, which had been backed by celebrity chef Jamie Oliver, Martha had blogged daily, detailing what she had eaten, and marking her lunches in categories including “number of mouthfuls”, “health rating” and “pieces of hair”. In response, users from around the world shared images of their school lunches, which Martha also published on the blog.

The young journalist and activist’s father took to the blog to provide readers with a little more detail on the day’s developments. He wrote:

“Martha’s school have been brilliant and supportive from the beginning and I’d like to thank them all. I contacted Argyll and Bute Council when Martha told me what happened at school today and they told me it was their decision to ban Martha’s photography.”

It is a shame that a blog that today went through 2 million hits, which has inspired debates at home and abroad and raised nearly £2000 for charity is forced to end.”

Photographer Paul Clarke questioned what issues the council may have been troubled by, adding:

“If I may, I’ll just park the “obvious” one – that they don’t want to be criticised publicly. The relevant issues to my mind are some old favourites in relation to images and technology: place, control, liability and of course precedent.”

Since posting her Goodbye, interest in the blog has spiked, with 425 people commenting on her post, and a massive increase in donations to her JustGiving page. At the time of posting, the activist’s Just Giving page had shot up to a massive £10,819.70 in donations.

One photo published on the blog showed an “alright” pizza, while another blog post added “the good thing about this blog is Dad understands why I am hungry when I get home.”

Argyll and Bute Council have confirmed that they have asked the schoolgirl to stop taking photographs of her lunches. A strongly worded statement released today said:

“Argyll and Bute Council wholly refutes the unwarranted attacks on its schools catering service which culminated in national press headlines which have led catering staff to fear for their jobs.

“The Council has directly avoided any criticism of anyone involved in the ‘never seconds’ blog for obvious reasons despite a strongly held view that the information presented in it misrepresented the options and choices available to pupils however this escalation means we had to act to protect staff from the distress and harm it was causing. In particular, the photographic images uploaded appear to only represent a fraction of the choices available to pupils, so a decision has been made by the council to stop photos being taken in the school canteen.

“There have been discussions between senior council staff and Martha’s father however, despite an acknowledgement that the media coverage has produced these unwarranted attacks, he intimated that he would continue with the blog.

Twitter users have taken to the microblogging site in support of the blog. Jamie Oliver tweeted:

Conservative MP Louise Mensch tweeted:

while Daily Telegraph Editor Tony Gallagher dubbed Argyll and Bute “the most stupid council in Britain” and described the decision as “the daftest own goal in a long time.” #Neverseconds was also trending on Twitter before 10am.

Councillor Mike Harris, also Head of Advocacy at Index on Censorship said:

“Councils often seem to forget they have the duty to protect freedom speech. When you get absurd cases like this, or the example of South Tyneside Council suing one of its councillors for libel, it shows that local government isn’t up to speed on its legal obligation to protect and promote free speech.”

As the website’s stats hit 2382060, and continue ticking over, it seems Argyll and Bute Council have created themselves a bigger PR disaster than an innocent blog from a young girl ever would have. Food for thought, if nothing else.

UK Supreme court rejects Julian Assange’s request to re-open extradition appeal

14 Jun 2012 | Europe and Central Asia, Index Index, minipost

Wikileaks founder Julian Assange has been denied a request to re-open his appeal against extradition to Sweden. In a statement issued today, the United Kingdom’s Supreme Court said that the decision to reject the request made by Dinah Rose, Assange’s lawyer, was “unanimous”. On 30 May, the court decided to allow Assange’s extradition by a 5-2 majority. Swedish authorities want to question Assange about two sex crime allegations brought against him. The activist fears that the possible charges are “politically motivated”, and has attorneys have announced plans to take the case to the European Court of Human Rights.

Brooks to PM: "We're in this together"

14 Jun 2012 | Leveson Inquiry

David Cameron has said statutory regulation must be a “last resort” in reforming the British press.

Spending the day giving evidence before the Leveson Inquiry today, the prime minister — who himself called for the Inquiry into press standards — said he was not ruling out statutory involvement in a new regulator, but said there was a need to “make everything that can be independent work before you reach for that lever”.

He said independent regulation of the press must involve all newspapers, be compulsory, be able to impose penalties and have investigatory powers.

A reformed Press Complaints Commission (PCC) had to be seen to be simple, understandable and offer redress for ordinary individuals, he said.

The key, Cameron said, was if an individual suffered press intrusion or was the subject of an inaccurate article, “that it really is worth their while going to this regulator, however established, and they know they’re going to get a front-page apology.

“Are we really protecting people who have been caught up and absolutely thrown to the wolves by the press?” he asked, citing repeatedly the “catacylsmic” revelations of last summer that abducted schoolgirl Milly Dowler’s phone had been hacked, which led to the closure of tabloid the News of the World and Cameron’s call for a public inquiry into press malfeasance.

“If families like the Dowlers feel this has really changed the way they would have been treated, we would have done our job properly,” Cameron said.

While he maintained he understood the “real concern” over statutory regulation of a free press, he repeated that he felt the country’s current system of press self-regulation had “failed”.

Lord Justice Leveson’s report, which will offer recommendations on future press regulation, is due to be published this autumn.

Cameron emerged from his day in the witness box relatively unscathed, save the revelation of a text message from former News International CEO Rebekah Brooks during the Conservative party conference in October 2009, in which she told the then leader of the opposition that “professionally, we’re definitely in this together” and signed off “yes he Cam!”

Cameron also spoke cautiously about his appointment of former News of the Wold editor Andy Coulson as his communications chief in 2007, noting that it was “controversial” due to Coulson’s resignation from the tabloid following the jailing of one of its reporters on phone hacking offences.

Yet Cameron stressed he and current chancellor George Osborne felt Coulson was a “very effective” candidate.

“The calculation was, who is going to be good enough, tough enough to deal with a very difficult job,” Cameron said.

He described the issue of Coulson’s lower-level vetting by Number 10 as a “red herring”, and defended handing responsibility of the £8bn bid for control of BSkyB to culture secretary Jeremy Hunt, telling the Inquiry that it had been endorsed by Cabinet secretary Sir Gus O’Donnell and backed with legal advice.

Looking to the future, Cameron recommended greater distance and respect between members of the press and politicians, noting that the relationship was not “a particularly trusting one at the moment”.

“When I got into Downing Street I did try to create a bit more distance. I think I need to go back and do that again,” Cameron said.

The Inquiry continues next week.

Follow Index on Censorship’s coverage of the Leveson Inquiry on Twitter – @IndexLeveson

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