Alasdair Palmer



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Journals: The Daily Telegraph

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Career: World in Action researcher and a documentary and docudrama producer who worked on the 1990 production Why Lockerbie? Palmer was the Associate Producer of Hostages (1993), a drama documentary depicting the kidnapping of Western hostages in Lebanon, and responsible for a major part of the film’s research. He was also the Co- Producer of the 1997 television film Path to Paradise: the Untold Story of the World Trade Center Bombing

Current position/role: columnist and the Public Policy Editor of The Sunday Telegraph


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Current debate: http://www.intelligencesquared.com/people/p/alasdair-palmer 

The Sunday Telegraph:
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Remit/Info: crime, immigration, the police, social services, justice and the incompetence of state and other authorities

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Website: www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/alasdair-palmer

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Day published: Sunday

Regularity: weekly

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Articles: 2011

 * For overcrowded England, there is no turning back - Migration is adding a million people to the UK’s population every five years - 30th October
 * The elderly are perfectly entitled to hoard their housing - A Labour think tank suggests old people should swap homes with young families. It's creeping collectivism - 23rd October
 * The Supreme Court's ruling on forced marriages makes its contempt for democracy clear - Judges now seem to think they should decide on the policies of the elected government - 16th October
 * The Government must stop bullying our universities - Imposing a quota system on universities undermines the principle of selection by merit - 2nd October
 * FiReControl Project: silly name, stupid idea – but you and I will pay for the fiasco - How can we expect to be well-governed when incompetence is rewarded? - 25th September
 * David Cameron is nudging us in the right direction - The Coalition's 'Nudge Unit' offers a novel way of persuading us to do the right thing - 18th September
 * How can we stop the great pensions swindle? - Our new research reveals that the vast majority of workers in the private sector are on course to retire with a pitifully small pension - or none at all - 11th September
 * Dale Farm: The council should Ignore the UN, and send in the bulldozers - If we give the travellers' houses at Dale Farm special treatment, it will break an essential precept of the rule of law - 4th September
 * is no longer taboo – but tackling it still is'' - The Coalition has merely tinkered with the rules on who gets into Britain, rather than taking real action - 28th August
 * law shouldn’t put this poor man out of his misery'' - Changing the law so that medical professionals can end someone's life is a big step on a slippery slope - 21st August
 * riots: Looting is easy, that's why so many joined in'' - Our biggest problem may be that the police and the courts are not frightening enough - 14th August
 * fixation on youth culture has left the elderly out in the cold'' - We don't just need to care for the increasing number of elderly people - we need to care about them, too - 7th August
 * might be power, but it's not enough'' - The benefits of David Cameron’s 'information revolution’ have been oversold - 10th July
 * one judge can make the lawmen look very foolish'' - Mr Justice McCombe's ruling on bail conditions has thrown the Government into turmoil and opened the door to thousands of lawsuits - 3rd July
 * Dowler: What was done to this family was legal, but immoral'' - The appalling treatment of Milly Dowler's family during the trial of Levi Bellfield is an inevitable consequence of our adversarial justice system - 26th June
 * unified Europe will be great news for the Eurocrats'' - The only people who will benefit from a united Europe are its politicians - 12th June
 * fighting a losing battle over asylum'' - The 'right to family life' leaves the authorities with no option but to throw in the towel - 5th June
 * P: Shoesmith’s rights matter less than protecting children'' - When the Haringey director of children's services was sacked, it seemed like a cycle had at last been broken - 28th May
 * versus the judges? It's no contest'' - The super-injunction regime is powerless against the might of the internet - 22nd May
 * magic bullet that could solve our prison problem'' - Lawrence Sherman thinks he can cut crime and prisoner numbers at the same time. But will it work - 15th May
 * 7 inquest: Our defenders should not be so defensive'' - MI5 are doing an excellent job, but their sensitivity to criticism often hides the fact - 8th May
 * the European Court be allowed to dash my hopes of a cure?'' - An imminent European ruling on stem cell research would deprive me, and others who have currently uncurable medical conditions, of hope - 1st May
 * teaching racist? No more than Oxford University or 'Mastermind''' - We are too quick to throw around accusations of racial discrimination - 24th April
 * guilty will go free to spare innocent blood'' - Leaving Moussa Koussa at liberty may be the price we pay for ensuring the departure of Gadaffi - 17th April
 * are suppressing the voters' rights'' - The judges who prevent voters from talking to MPs are weakening democracy - 10th April
 * awful truth is that we don't even know how much the EU costs us'' - The EU says our contributions total £14.7 billion, the ONS says they are £17.5 billion - but it could be even more - 3rd April
 * one immigration loophole closes, another opens'' - How many enter Britain through sham marriages? No one knows - 27th March
 * served in 'the community’ could cost us dear'' - If Kenneth Clarke makes more use of community sentences then he should make sure that these are managed properly - 20th March
 * pensions gravy train in the public sector has to be derailed'' - Lord Hutton's report on public sector pensions did not go nearly far enough to redress the gap with the private sector - 13th March
 * can’t dismiss everyone who rejects the EU'' - Bad judgments and wasted money are calling the value of the whole European project into question - 6th March
 * Government’s botched plan to play happy families'' - Getting couples to go through mediation, not the courts, will change little - 27th February
 * the judges' urge trespass in politics be curbed?'' - The European Court of Human Rights and Human Rights Acts are merely the pretexts for judicial activism - 20th February
 * say goodbye to Strasbourg and its daft decisions'' - The votes-for-prisoners fiasco shows why Britain should opt out of the European Court of Human Rights' jurisdiction - 6th February
 * unemployment: can’t work or won’t work?'' - Although youth unemployment is at its highest ever, there are jobs to be found. Why are so many filled by immigrants? - 24th January
 * bosses want a fight, regardless of what the rank and file think'' - Trade union leaders are planning to take Britain back to the old days of strikes and stoppages - 16th January
 * control orders are here to stay, then make them work'' - Whatever alternative the Government comes up with, it needs to be more effective - 9th January



Articles: 2010

 * never be able to take crime out of the drugs trade'' - Bob Ainsworth's plan to decriminalise drugs won't solve the problem - 19th December
 * tests could prevent those like me being born at all'' - A new pre-natal test promises increased safety and accuracy - but how will doctors decide which defects are severe enough for abortion - 12th December
 * Chindamo and the problems of probation'' - Some criminals deserve a second chance - but it's difficult to tell which - 28th November
 * judges' decision on Guantanamo should mystify us all'' - The payout to the 'Guantanamo Six' shows 'British values' at theirmost bizarre - 21st November
 * is right to protect democracy from Phil Woolas’s lies'' - Those who back the disgraced Labour MP should think again - 14th November
 * Clegg will find that being nice to the EU rarely cuts any ice'' - The only way to beat Brussels is to repatriate powers - 7th November
 * up to the 'prenup' won't destroy marriage'' - The Supreme Court's decision to recognise prenuptial agreements respects personal freedom - 24th October
 * still won't face the consequences of immigration'' - Coalition policy on immigration is based on the same principle as Labour's, which is denial - 17th October
 * attacks may be legal, but are they moral?'' - The silence from human rights groups on America's use of 'targeted attacks' in Afghanistan is deafening - 10th October
 * expulsion of the Roma offers a lesson to Britain'' - If the French can ignore the European Court of Justice, why can't we - 3rd October
 * crime problem is being swept under the carpet'' - The very fear of becoming a target discourages people from reporting anti-social behaviour - 26th September
 * Shoesmith is right about one thing...'' - There will be more cases like Baby P's until the child protection system is fixed - 19th September
 * an axe to the BBC, but save the World Service'' - Foreigners know the value of the BBC World Service in a way we do not - 11th September
 * Ahmadinejad be Genghis Khan with a nuclear bomb?'' - Iran will not be shamed into abandoning stoning, or its nuclear ambitions - 5th September
 * for your own drugs and the NHS will still shun you'' - Despite changes to regulations, whether your hospital takes co-payment for treatment is down to the bosses’ whim - 29th August
 * freedom mocks both the victims and justice'' - Kenny MacAskill and Alex Salmond's definition of 'compassion' is an affront to justice - 22nd August
 * suffers – but our wallets remain closed'' - Alasdair Palmer asks why the floods in Pakistan prompted only a sixteenth of the donations sent to Haiti - 15th August
 * Hamza is still here, yet we extradite hundreds unfairly'' - How can our judges participate in what they know to be injustice? The answer is that their hands are tied - 11th July
 * Clarke is wrong about prison - just ask his department'' - Changing our penal policy will only result in more crime - 3rd July
 * tuition fees don't really discriminate against the poor'' - Regardless of their background, people who are bright enough to get to university are also bright enough to be able to figure out that a university education is worth it - 13th June
 * must defend itself with moves towards peace'' - Every time Hamas sets a trap, the Israelis walk straight into it - 6th June
 * DNA is scary, but not in the way you think'' - It is painful to discover that the intangible glory of life is just chemical reactions - 23rd May
 * the coalition is set to bring us a rise in crime'' - The Tories believe in prison, but the Lib Dems have been hostile to incarceration for more than 50 years - 16th May
 * won't improve our government or our democracy'' - The voters get stuck with the same set of politicians and policies - 9th May
 * immigration experiment shows Labour at its worst'' - A significant social change was foisted on Britain without our consent - 2nd May
 * all men are ready to stay at home with the kids'' - Without taking on the responsibility of providing for a family, a lot of men never grow up, which brings a host of social problems in its wake - 11th April
 * Big Society is irresistible, but do we have the time?'' - Staying in a job and being a good parent is demanding enough for most people - 4th April
 * only way to stop youth crime is to help the parents'' - The behaviour of violent teenagers is established in the earliest years of their lives - 28th March
 * question that all our politicians are agreed on'' - how will we fund care for the elderly over the next 20 years? - 21st March
 * Bob knows that charity covers a multitude of sins'' - Aid workers calculate that it is better to do some good than none - 14th March
 * strange case of the vanishing hunger strike'' - It appears there isn’t any evidence that the Border Agency could provide that would convince its critics - 7th March
 * Government that doesn't know where babies come from'' - It is not stupidity or ignorance that causes teenage pregnancies - 28th February
 * murder became an accepted tool of foreign policy'' - The apparent consensus that assassination is legitimate is very sinister - 21st February
 * Mohamed: a clash of convictions'' - on the difference between Binyam Mohamed and Jean Charles de Menezes - 13th February
 * highest court has sunk very low indeed'' - Last week, the Supreme Court ruled that the assets of four suspected terrorists should no longer be frozen. The judges' decision was misguided - 7th February
 * in Britain isn't down to class but brains'' - It's not snobbery but genetics that mostly determines how well we get on - 31st January
 * 'mercy killing' without consent is nothing but murder'' - The Inglis case is irrelevant to the central issue that the law cannot license killing because people think sick relatives will be better off dead - 24th January
 * may not be a perfect solution, but it's all we have'' - Prison is certainly abysmally bad at turning criminals into law-abiding citizens, but the alternatives are worse - 17th January
 * Detroit bombing shows that with humans in charge, security can't be foolproof'' - As Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab demonstrated in Detroit, airline security is only as strong as the people who run it - 3rd January



Articles: 2009

 * secret behind Clint Eastwood's crime-free Pacific paradise'' - The worst case on the police incident log in Carmel was the unlawful use of a leaf blower - 27th December
 * Michael Powell case shows how charges of racism hobble the police'' - The inquest into Michael Powell's death cost a million pounds to prove racism was not to blame - 20th December
 * Straw should stop this shameful Cabinet cover-up'' - The Labour Party introduced the Freedom of Information Act but now seems determined to subvert it - 13th December
 * civil servants with pay packets as big as their egos'' - Why do Government agencies pay their top staff more than they need to? Because they can - 6th December
 * NHS should not waste our cash on homeopathy'' - If £4 million is spent, it means £4 million less for drugs that work better - 29th November
 * Harman's costly Equality Bill won't do anything for women'' - The Equality Bill is a pointless piece of dogma that will ony make our businesses less competitive - 22nd November
 * is only as free as Labour wants'' - Rather than face an argument about late abortions, the Government is trying to stop the argument happening - 15th November
 * justice could actually restore justice'' - A scheme whereby criminals encounter the victims of their crimes can drastically reduce the rate of reoffending - 1st November
 * the Human Rights Act, and dump Strasbourg'' - The Human RIghts Act is not the problem, it's the interpretation of it in the Strasbourg court - 25th October
 * should be trusted to see through extremism'' - The BNP has been allowed to grow like a mushroom in the dark - 18th October
 * schools are at the mercy of the Charity Commission's prejudices'' - ‘Public benefit' is being defined to suit the political agenda of an unelected quango - 10th October
 * fatal cost of inaction over foreign doctors working in the NHS'' - We continue to take risks over foreign doctors in the NHS because the Government has failed to act - 4th October
 * messy law on suicide is the least worst solution'' - How will we decide when money has won out over compassion - 27th September
 * the BBC is uniquely unaccountable'' - The BBC is the only public body whose accounts can't be inspected by the National Audit Office. No wonder its executives have no concept of value for money - 20th September
 * the Vetting and Barring Scheme is pure madness'' - There are a host of reasons why the Government's plan to protect children via a vast database, under the new Vetting and Barring Scheme, is monumentally ill-judged - 13th September
 * pay dearly for our belief that evil can be cured'' - The dispiriting reality is that there are people - even children - who are beyond help - 6th September
 * this rate, life in Britain will be one big squash'' - Ministers like to rpetend that immigration is under control, but that is far from the truth - 30th August
 * criminals out of jail is only good for criminals'' - The inconvenient but obvious truth is that community sentences do not protect the public as effectively as prison does - 23rd August
 * must we bow to the intolerant ways of Islam?'' - Jim Fitzpatrick MP and his wife were quite right to leave a wedding because it was segregated by sex - 16th August
 * Why not stop the free cash and call the bankers' bluff? - The deal we have decided to do with the bankers can seem uncomfortably close to the sort of deal the Aztecs did with their high priests - 8th August 2009
 * Make bankers and bureaucrats pay for their mistakes - When people are encouraged to behave irresponsibly with money in any sector, disaster ensues - 18th July 2009
 * Clamping is a state-sanctioned extortion racket - By refusing to clamp down on the clampers, the police are neglecting their duty to protect the public - 11th July 2009
 * Licensed teachers? Ed Balls hasn't done his homework - Alasdair Palmer says that nothing in Labour's latest education plan will improve state schools - 4th July 2009
 * Bagel theory explains why the BBC is in a hole - The BBC doesn’t make any money for anyone. It just spends it - 27th June 2009
 * Has Operation Ore left a scar on British justice? - Scores of the men caught by Operation Ore may not be paedophiles, but victims of identity theft - 20th June 2009
 * Preventing terror trumps protecting legal principles - Alasdair Palmer cannot understand why judges have decided that it is more important to preserve legal principle than to prevent a major terrorist attack - 13th June 2009
 * French student murders: Why do we trust that these killers have reformed? - Terrible decisions - such as those that lead to the brutal deaths of two French students - are all too common in our probation system - 6th June 2009
 * Judges are not there to bypass democracy - It's tempting to sympathise with the police chief who is rebelling after having his budget cut, but only elected politicians can decide where public money goes - 30th May 2009
 * Asylum airlines - your one-way flight to deportation - Every week, chartered planes deport dangerous foreigners back to their countries of origin. Alasdair Palmer is the first journalist to accompany them - 23rd May 2009
 * Sensibly, Barack Obama follows the George W Bush line on terror - Dick Cheney claims that President Obama is "harming America" by dismantling the Bush administration's policies on terror. But the strange thing is that, in fact, Mr Obama is not dismantling them - 23rd May 2009
 * There is one law for terrorists, and one for rapists - Why does the low conviction rate for both terrorism and rape provoke such different responses - 16th May 2009
 * Keeping DNA is no different from storing photos - The state should take a DNA sample from everyone. It helps convict the guilty and release the innocent - 9th May 2009
 * Why a banker with a £1m salary is good news for the world's poor - Richard Laing deserves his salary of £970,000 because he does more to help the world's poor than an army of well-motivated charity workers - 2nd May 2009 (see: CDC Group)
 * To convict terrorists, we have to change the rules - Most countries allow evidence obtained by interception in court. Why don't we, asks Alasdair Palmer, as 12 terror suspects are released without charge - 25th April 2009
 * Give us back our private lives - As Labour unveils plans to monitor every one of our phone calls and emails, it is time to demand an end to state snooping - 25th April 2009
 * Police hurt themselves in a propaganda war - People expect the police to behave decently, even when confronted by hostile demonstrators at the G20 - 18th April 2009
 * The benefit that became an incentive to divorce - Labour's tax policies have directly led to a 160 per cent increase in single mothers, with all the attendant social problems - 4th April 2009
 * Commission takes a charitable view of terrorism - A school funded by Green Crescent in Bangladesh hid guns and explosives - 28th March 2009
 * The prejudice persists over Down's Syndrome - We have yet to recognise that Down's Syndrome is not something which has to be avoided - 21st March 2009
 * All you need to know about immigration in Britain today - With schools struggling to teach increasing numbers of foreign children, and reports suggesting the population of Britain will be 70 million by 2028, Alasdair Palmer explains why we are facing an immigration crisis - 21st March 2009
 * Seven million immigrants can't be good for Britain - The Government has not considered how to fit enough new arrivals to create a city the size of London into the already over-crowded South East - 14th March 2009
 * Only incompetence will save us from Orwell's surveillance state - We're a long way from the dystopian vision of Nineteen Eighty-Four, but it's not always for want of trying - 7th March 2009
 * The police need help, but they're frightened to ask - Sorry, Jack Straw, but even the cops think you're tainted with the Big Brother brush - 28th February 2009
 * Abu Qatada's compensation makes a mockery of human rights - Tearing up the Human Rights Act is not necessary but we extricate ourselves from Strasbourg - 21st February 2009
 * Why are we so surprised that our teenagers are having babies? - Modern Britain has created a culture of incentives for teenagers to get pregnant and have children - 14th February 2009
 * The use of torture will test Barack Obama's idealism - Like every president, Mr Obama will sometimes have to compromise to protect US security - 7th February 2009
 * Half of us are barely literate and it's getting worse - The Government claims our school pupils are doing brilliantly - but the facts say otherwise - 31st January 2009
 * Want to cut violent crime? It's quite simple - If criminals know the cost to them is low, they will commit more crimes - 24th January 2009
 * Labour's skewed view of upward mobility - Because its analysis is wrong, the Government's proposals to improve the prospects of poor children won't work - 17th January 2009
 * MI5 says it plays by the rules. I hope that's not true - The head of Britain's security service insists it always observes human rights. The evidence suggests otherwise - which is a good thing - 10th January 2009
 * There's no benefit in being white and working class - Labour's obsession with an open-door immigration policy has hit its core vote hardest - 3rd January 2009



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