Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
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MPS have been urged to investigate the Government’s “disgraceful” obstruction of requests for public information.
Current and former newspaper editors want a review of the Freedom of Information system.
It is claimed Michael Gove’s Cabinet Office is operating a “clearing house” which advises departments how to avoid answering questions.
It faces legal action over accusations it profiles and blacklists journalists.
The editors have written to Public Administration Committee and Media Committee chairs William Wragg and Julian Knight.
A Government spokesman said: “We must balance the need to make information available with our legal duty to protect sensitive information.”
PLANS to axe multi-buy deals on “unhealthy” foods face a shopper backlash.
Almost three quarters want to keep buy-one-getone free deals with one in four telling the Food and Drink Federation it’s vital.
Nearly two thirds said “three for twos” were important with three quarters using them to stock up and feed a larger family.
The FDF’S Kate Halliwell told the Retail Times: “We’re extremely concerned that removing them will add to food bills.”
1
The world’s highest waterfall Angel Falls is on which continent?
2
2021 is the Chinese year of which animal?
3
Who wrote the TV crime drama Prime Suspect?
4
Rock singer John Michael Osbourne is better known as who?
5
A biennial plant lives for how many years?
Editor of the Mirror at the time
I WAS just tidying my desk for an early exit on a quiet Friday, when our head of security appeared, looking nervous, saying there had been a coded IRA bomb warning about an attack at Canary Wharf.
“Is it serious?” I asked. “Well, they’ve had a few that came to nothing,” he replied, “but seem to think this one might be, yes.”
At 7pm, soon afterwards, an enormous bang went off. I was blown off my chair, and my office was 22 floors up. I ran into the newsroom and there was general controlled panic.
The explosion had gone off a few hundred yards away.
Most offices in the tower were emptying at high speed, but we are journalists. I said that if anyone wanted to go home, they must leave.
But I added I was buggered if the IRA were going to stop us getting the paper out.
Some left, many stayed.
SHOUTING
We wiped out the front page to catch the first edition with a headline, IRA BOMB ROCKS THE WHARF.
At 8.45pm, two policemen burst on to the floor shouting at us to leave because the BBC had received a warning there was a device inside our tower. My heart flipped a few beats. I shouted at everyone to get out, but the lifts had been stopped and we all had to march down 22 flights, which took over 20 scary minutes.
We made our way to a pub and considered what to do.
The police had said we couldn’t go back inside, but unofficially they didn’t want the IRA to stop us coming out.
So, around 11pm, after frank exchanges, I was allowed to head back to the newsroom with 20 or so staff members.
I got home at 4am, and woke at 7.30am to the papers coming through the letterbox.
There was the 10-page
Mirror special edition.
I said a “f*** you” to the IRA. I’ve never been prouder of the Mirror or its journalists.