BBC Spotlight

“I can not understand why this population is so docile. If you trample on their cultural identity they will riot in the streets. But if their grannies’ legs are literally falling off they just accept it as that’s life…”

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Wise words from the good doctor who was interviewed on BBC Spotlight about the health waiting lists. Here we go… number 1 pic.twitter.com/UOUMdhH26W — Adam Turkington (@AdamTurks) December 4, 2019 As you may know, I have written some posts about the health service. It can dismay you how few readers they get. A post on health will get 500 readers; a post on bonfires will get 5000. I have often thought about why this is. The only thing I can …

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Behind the scenes of Spotlight on The Troubles: Willie Frazer, Alan Oliver, Patrick Ryan, and ongoing questions about ‘The Secret War’ film (Thu 9pm on BBC One NI)

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At a screening of the behind-the-scenes companion show about the making of Spotlight on The Troubles (to be broadcast next week on Thursday at 9pm after the final extended episode airs on Tuesday at 8.30pm), Mandy McAuley explained her shock when victims’ campaigner Willie Frazer – with whom she had worked while making programmes about victims for two decades – admitted to his role in the distribution of weapons to loyalist paramilitaries. Further questions about the making and suppression of US film The Secret War that captured footage of the IRA at work, and the painstaking efforts to line up interviews and tie down evidence is explained.

Spotlight on The Troubles: A Secret History (ep 6) – Mid-Ulster UVF gang members who avoided being charged for murder (Tuesday 15 October at 9pm on BBC One NI and BBC Four)

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The penultimate episode of Spotlight on The Troubles: A Secret History asks why some UVF members of a Mid-Ulster gang escaped prosecution – confronting an alleged prolific serial killer – and asks whether there was a deliberate loyalist strategy to kill family members of committed republicans during the late 1980s and early 1990s, during what is described as “the final burst of violence” before the ceasefires? Tuesday evening at 9pm on BBC One NI and BBC Four.

Spotlight on The Troubles: A Secret History (episode 5): a dirty war with unionist political support for loyalist insurrection, security service and government support for collusion (BBC One NI and BBC Four at 9pm)

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Watching a preview of tonight’s fifth episode of Spotlight on The Troubles: A Secret History  left me feeling sick in the pit of my stomach. Not out of surprise, or at the scale of atrocities featured, but out of disillusionment at the actions and powerful words of so-called leaders of the community. Condemning republican violence out of one side of their mouths, while encouraging sedition out of the other. Unionists may well have felt under siege, with UDR, RUC and …

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Spotlight on the Troubles #2: intermediaries, talks, ceasefires and a mounting death toll (Tue 17 Sep at 9pm on BBC One NI and BBC Four)

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The second episode in BBC Spotlight’s seven-part series A Secret History of the Troubles picks up the conflict timeline in 1972 and runs through to 1979. The programme will be broadcast tonight at 9pm on BBC One NI and BBC Four. The key themes explored are the changing of the guard within the IRA that hardened attitudes towards ceasefires and opened the door to ‘the long war’; figures and initiatives that kept communication channels between the British and the IRA …

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Spotlight on the Troubles: a Secret History (BBC One NI and BBC Four, Tue 10 Sep)

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Allegations about a financial link between Paisley and the UVF in the late 1960s and newly discovered footage of Martin McGuinness showing a firearm and bullets to Derry kids and inspecting a car bomb are just part of the story of the beginning of four decades of conflict being told in first of seven ‘Spotlight on the Troubles: a Secret History’ programmes.

BBC Spotlight – Shining a spotlight on homelessness

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Spotlight has built a reputation over the years as a hard-hitting investigation programme, highlighting wrong-doings of citizens and elected representatives alike, on Tuesday 17th March it tackles a hidden issue in society, that of homelessness. [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e4gru1qGZzo&w=560&h=315] The dichotomy of Northern Ireland is such that the incomparable can often become synonymous with each other, whilst MLA’s argue about the hundreds of millions of the welfare bill and whether or not northern irish citizens could become taxed for the luxury of …

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Housing Executive: there was “a considerable degree of challenge” by management to the findings of inquiries

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So to borrow the latest loan word to German (if it is good enough for Angela its good enough for me) as one shitschturm fades leaving virtually no trace of ever having existed, another one is blown up to take its place. The rule in any public scandal, is follow the money. Today, a report from the Northern Ireland Audit Office firmly points the finger at the Northern Ireland Housing Executive: Auditor General Kieran Donnelly said estimated overpayments of £18m to …

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“What are Sinn Fein waiting for, more people to die?”

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Interesting piece on BBC Spotlight on Tuesday night reviewed controversy over the Travers’ killing of April 1984. In passing at the beginning, it suggests the HET report into the killing of Mary Travers murder came to the conclusion that this operation was a deliberate attempt to kill all three family members. They also carried a statement from Mary McArdle saying “the murder of Mary Travers was a tragic mistake which I regret”. In an impromptu interview with the BBC journalist Julian …

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