Simon Burall Profile picture
Aug 6, 2020 6 tweets 2 min read Read on X
The Patch (@BBCRadio4) is a wimsical little programme set around the conceit of investigating a random postcode every episode 1/
The Patch just tackled homelessness in a time of Covid in London’s Square Mile bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m0… 2/
The Patch just did for my understanding of homelessness what I think BBC news programmes and esp @BBCr4today should be doing day in day out instead of stupid short gotcha interviews presenting false balance 3/
The Patch presented a humane and human picture of homelessness that didn’t shy away from the difficult question but let them breathe and me decide 4/
The Patch left me on the brink of tears and full of hope. It gave me insights into a pressing social issue. It did the job BBC News should be doing. 5/
The Patch demonstrated clearly how I think the BBC is currently failing us. 6/

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More from @sburall

Oct 28, 2021
1/ I'm sitting in on an @ifgevents live stream with @ICOnews's Elizabeth Denham instituteforgovernment.org.uk/events/elizabe… #IfGDenham

If there's something relevant from a public engagement perspective I'll add to this thread
2/ Some prepared remarks from ED first. The law worked best, she says, when the publics' views are put front and centre of any data use #IfGDenham
3/ Big things on her desk are #transparency, #AI #algorithms and #BigData < I wonder how many of those are big things from the public's perspectives? Suspect outcomes and impacts are much more relevant, less about data #IfGDenham
Read 12 tweets
Jul 8, 2021
1/ Looking forward to the launch of @GenomicsEngland's #newborndialogue report which starts in a few minutes. I'm going to be live tweeting. With over 1000 people signed up it's full, but you can follow along here
2/ The #newborndialogue was supported by @Sciencewise and you can find out more about the dialogue here sciencewise.org.uk/projects/whole…
3/ If you are interested in finding out more about @sciencewise and the support it offers government bodies to engage the public effectively, you'll find that here - sciencewise.org.uk/about-sciencew…
Read 67 tweets
Sep 22, 2020
Sitting in on the "Science and Society, 20 years on: legacy and lessons for a post-Covid world" conference. I'll try to tweet key points that strike me, but not live tweet to avoid spamming you buff.ly/3cnx13O 1/
Kicking off is @jameswilsdon reminding us that the reason for the event is that we are twenty years on since the House of Lords Science and Technology Committee published its seminal report on Science and Society. And the issues in there are still live publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld199900/ld… 2/
3/ @jameswilsdon is aiming for an honourable mention by @BCredibility ....
Read 72 tweets
Aug 24, 2020
1/ The question about whether and how we should open schools is real and live uk.news.yahoo.com/seventeen-teac…

How do we balance the educational needs of children against
i. the health needs of teachers,
ii. the health needs of the wider population
iii. the wider economic impact?
2/ Whatever we decide will entail difficult choices which will affect different groups differently, in different ways and over very different timescales. At its starkest, the longer term education of our children vs short term economy?

What a choice, what an awful choice.
3/ But we need to make it, not debating it and trying to ignore it doesn't make the choice go away, it is just made by default, by the virus in fact
Read 6 tweets
Jul 25, 2020
I share your sense of outrage at what is happening in Portland. But I think that to blame deliberative democracy is to misunderstand what democracy is 1/
2/ Democracy isn't one thing. Here in the UK, through the 80s and 90s, those campaigning for greater democracy were focused on institutions: establishing a constitution, proportional representation, an elected House of Lords etc
3/ All of these things are important components of democracy, but they won't magically transform the UK into some sort of utopian democracy. Not on their own, and not even if they all happened
Read 9 tweets
Jul 9, 2020
This episode of the @BertelsmannFdn How To Fix Democracy podcast series with Malcolm Rifkind is interesting for a couple of reasons, although I didn't find most of his insights particularly compelling (there are better episodes) buff.ly/2O9LSE4
2/ Right at the start Rifkind is asked why he got into democratic politics. He says aged 15 he joined a school debating club and carried on through university
3/ as an aside he notes that all schools have this - I think this betrays his background, all public schools perhaps, and prompts my first set of thoughts about his world view on democracy
Read 14 tweets

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