Madeley, Widdecombe and the paramedics

In his column in last week's Express, Richard Madeley wrote about the case of Thomas Passant:

'Lunch is for wimps' - Gordon Gekko in the seminal movie Wall Street, released in 1987.

Twenty-five years on, Gekko would make short work of the West Midlands Ambulance Service.

Incredibly, paramedics refused to interrupt their lunch break despite an emergency call for an ambulance to attend.

He went on:

So what did a paramedic team in Shropshire decide was a lesser priority than feeding their faces?

You’ll never guess. No, really, you won’t. Indeed when I read about it this week I thought it was some kind of joke, albeit in poor taste.

But the grotesque truth is this.

West Midlands Ambulance Service’s finest continued to munch their lunch after a six-week-old baby boy suffered a heart attack. His family dialled 999 but had to wait 41 minutes for an ambulance to come, because a crew were on their break and couldn’t be interrupted.

The College of Paramedics issued a statement in response:

"It's simply not true that this crew sat 'feeding their faces' knowing that a patient, in this case a baby, was suffering a life-threatening heart condition," said Andy Proctor, Paramedic spokesperson for College of Paramedics members in the West Midlands.

"It's absolutely outrageous to suggest that this or, indeed, any paramedic or ambulance crew would knowingly sit eating a meal whilst a child's life is at threat. We believe that this article has totally misreported the facts in this case."

"What he [Madeley] also didn't mention is that a paramedic was already at the patient's side within minutes, providing life-saving treatment.

Quotes from other people in the statement criticised the paper for:

inaccurate and poorly-researched journalism

And said:

it is extremely disappointing to read such an article which plainly has not reported all the facts clearly.

The College of Paramedics called for an 'unequivocal public apology' and a donation to the Ambulance Services Benevolent Fund.

A follow up statement from them explained what happened next:

A storm broke on Twitter, with Richard Madeley being harangued to the point where, on Monday evening, he acknowledged on Twitter that the story was "widely misreported" and that he was writing a follow-up piece. However, he did not apologise and has not now been seen on Twitter for three days.

Meanwhile – despite a torrent of comments under the online version of the article – the Express issued no correction or apology.

On the afternoon of Tuesday (January 15th), the College of Paramedics, which represents the professional interests of paramedics, issued its press release setting out the facts of the story and putting the paramedics' side. This release almost immediately 'went viral', receiving 12,000+ unique views in a matter of hours and becoming widely quoted on Twitter and even more quoted and 'Like'd by many thousands of Facebook users.

On Wednesday, the Express responded by not only closing the comments section under the online Richard and Judy page but removing all comments completely. Yet still the original story stood. And the storm on Facebook continued, unabated.

Then at lunchtime on Wednesday, the family of baby Thomas joined the Facebook debate in defence of paramedics. Matthew Passant, Thomas' father, posted: "I'm the childs father who the article was about and let me tell you me and my partner have nothing but gratitude to the paramedics who attended to my son Thomas and the paramedics know this as we have spoken to them and their bosses personally." He also wrote "your paramedics, along with the doctors and nurses and everyone else on the way is the reason why our son is still alive and recovering every day."

And Thomas' aunt, Kate Passant, posted: "We as a family were shocked to read this article and just want to say thankyou to the paramedics who attended. The paramedics that attended him did an amazing job and helped save his life."

The response from the Express? Repentance? A correction? An apology?

Not a bit of it. Instead, the Express removed the Richard and Judy piece altogether on Thursday (today), as if it had never existed.

But the day before removing Madeley's article, they published a comment piece by Ann Widdecombe which repeated the charges (and which remains live on their website):

A baby of eight weeks is facing possible disability for life as a result of an ambulance crew finishing its break before going on a 999 call...

when it comes to putting sandwiches before a dying baby and then defending such action as reasonable, Britain has sunk to a new depth.

The College noted it was 'strangely similar' to the Madeley piece and added:

This ignored the truth that, in fact, baby Thomas was receiving paramedic treatment within minutes of the 999 call being made, and the fact that no ambulance crew refused to interrupt its break: that simply did not happen. 

Yesterday, Madeley returned to the subject and back-tracked on what he wrote last week:

It seemed like an open and shut case. It took 41 minutes for an ambulance to arrive at the West Midlands home where a baby had suffered a heart attack. Why? Because the crew were on an “undisturbed” meal break and couldn’t be called out until they’d finished. The rules are rigorous. Undisturbed means undisturbed. This is the policy set by the ambulance service.

The original story provoked a flurry of negative headlines and comment. I wrote about it here last week, expressing incredulity that such a state of affairs was possible and criticising the crew involved.

Seven days on, I am 100 per cent certain that I got this part of the story wrong. No mealy-mouthed apology, this. Yes, the crew had requested a break but they had no knowledge of the 999 call until they clocked back on. In the circumstances my criticism was unjust.

He goes on to repeat some of the stories he has heard over the last week from paramedics. But he still doesn't mention a paramedic was on the scene within minutes of the call.

And 'no mealy-mouthed apology, this'? He admits his criticism was 'unjust' and some of what he said was 'wrong' but he hasn't actually said 'sorry' at all.

Overpaid MP repeats the 'dog ate earring' story

The Mail on Sunday's false story about Kate Middleton's dog eating some earrings given to her by Prince William has been exposed by the fact Middleton doesn't have a dog.

This is known to the Express' Royal Reporter Richard Palmer, who tweeted it about it on Monday.

But on Tuesday, Express columnist and Conservative MP Ann Widdecombe repeated the story:

“The dog ate my income tax form” or “the dog ate my homework” are proverbial excuses but “the dog ate my pearl earrings” is certainly an original plea. Poor Kate Middleton, whose birthday gift from Prince William was swallowed up by her curious cocker spaniel!

Except they weren't, because she doesn't have a spaniel.

The Prince is reported to have found the whole episode hilarious

Except, he didn't, because there was no 'episode'.

Widdecombe is paid up to £1,100 by the Express for every column she writes.

As Richard Littlejohn shows twice a week, there's lots of money to be made out of re-heating stories without doing any research to see if they're accurate.

[Update: It's been pointed out that although Widdecombe did register £5,000 for one Daily Express article in 2008, she's now paid £4,583 per month for eight hours work on her columns. Post amended.]

Widdy foams at the mouth

Ann Widdecombe has blundered into the debate over the film Antichrist with a totally unsurprising rant in her Express column. It is almost guaranteed that she hasn't seen the film, although, unlike Christopher Hart, she isn't stupid enough to admit that.

The column isn't posted on the Express website, but this is it:

Hardcore pornography should not be shown at cinemas so why is Antichrist...deemed suitable for an 18 classification?

Errr because it isn't 'hardcore pornography'?

Have our censors become so inured to the extreme material paraded before them that they no longer recognise pornography when they see it?

No. As their recent R18 certificate for, ahem, Granny the Tranny shows.

An 18 certificate is supposed to mean not suitable for children, not unsuitable for adults as well.

Well if you think it is 'unsuitable' for you as an adult, don't watch it. The BBFC guidelines for an 18 certficate state, with some (mainly criminal) exceptions:

the BBFC’s guideline concerns will not normally override the principle that adults should be free to choose their own entertainment.

Quite right too. But Widdy goes on:

Doubtless the makers relish the publicity but if enough local authorities refuse to sanction it for public showing then it might hit them where it hurts them most - in the profit margins.

It is almost guaranteed that Lars von Trier would find articles like these highly amusing. And it is equally likely that the film has gained at the box office from the publicity. But really, this was always a niche film and its opening weekend takings of £99,092 shows that - it's only being shown in 38 cinemas. Compare that to the 600 showing the new Harry Potter which made £19.7m in its first weekend.

Newspapers should publish a list of shame, naming those authorities who allow it a screening in their cinemas.

Yes they should - then we can all find out where we can see it.

This film isn't avant garde, it isn't experimental, it isn't challenging: it is just the sort of porn you might reasonably expect to find hidden away in sleazy backstreet shops for consumption by the dirty mackintosh brigade.

Yes, that is what she really thinks. And she gets £55,000 a year for vigorous intellectual insights like that. It does seem curious that she seems more concerned about an erect penis and - shock - a married couple depicted having sex, than she seems to be about the well-publicised violence.

And from the descriptions, 'challenging' seems quite an apt word for the film. But to describe it as wanking material seems totally bizarre.

In his review, the Telegraph's Sukhdev Sandhu referred to:

the foaming-mouthed witch burners of the popular press out in full, end-of-the-world effect. It is, they hiss and scream with the moral certainty of which only the most self-regarding ideologues are ever capable, a work of pornography.

Ann Widdecombe as a 'foaming-mouthed witch burner'?

Surely not.