After Britain’s publicly funded banks received billions in bailouts, Panorama asks whether they are doing all they can to help everybody else weather the recession.

Do the likes of HBOS, now owned by Lloyds, RBS and Northern Rock care about first-time buyers, small businesses and the Great British public that have saved their bacon?

Reporter John Sweeney holds the banks and the Government to account.

Monday 21 September
8.30-9.00pm BBC ONE

Haringey Council filmed Baby P’s mother talking about her boyfriend four months before the toddler was found dead, Panorama can reveal.

The council has repeatedly denied knowledge that the man had access to the child – now known as Peter – claiming the manipulative mother had hidden his existence from them and made it impossible for social workers to assess the dangers the child faced.

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Last night’s Panorama saw journalist and reporter Ben Anderson going undercover in the millionaires’ playground of Dubai to look at what goes on behind the scenes of the luxury developments that are endorsed by celebrities such as Jamie Oliver, Michael Owen, Freddie Flintoff, Greg Norman, Vijay Singh, Sergio Garcia and Sam Torrance.

In a country that penalises journalists who report stories that negatively reflect the economy, or insult the government, with massive fines and in the past, even imprisonment, Ben had to maintain a low profile, hence his undercover filming and posing as a potential buyer. And what he discovered there were migrant workers in their thousands living in conditions that we wouldn’t keep a dog in, and if we did, we’d be fined. Read more & comment »

Last night’s Panorama special revealed the inside story of the “kidnap that never was” and disclosed the truth about the mother of Shannon Matthews who was yesterday found guilty of kidnapping her daughter in order to claim a reward for her recovery. This article isn’t only about the programme though because I feel we as a society need to address the issues raised in this programme that pertain to how Karen Matthews and her family lived.

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A Panorama investigation into monitoring by the UK electronic intelligence agency – the Government Communications Head Quarters (GCHQ) – of the Omagh bombers has uncovered details of a Home Office meeting in 1999 chaired by the head of MI5, Sir Stephen Lander.

Meeting minutes include reference to a discussion of the case for and against using telephone intercepts as evidence in court proceedings.

The minutes reveal “an unsuccessful two year Police/Security Service job where use of intercept material may have resulted in a prosecution but where the suspects later went on to carry out a major terrorist act. This might conceivably have been avoided if the intercept material could have been used”. Read more & comment »

An internet predator jailed for grooming three underage girls on line for sex – including a BBC Panorama researcher posing as a 14-year-old – has an emotionally unstable personality disorder and is likely to re-offend without intensive treatment.

Panorama’s One Click From Capture (BBC One, 8.30pm, Monday 26 May) details how the programme’s initial contact with “Swimcoach3″, late last year, ultimately led to the jailing at Bristol Crown Court last Tuesday of 43-year-old security guard, Roger Kenneth Manning, from Cullompton in Devon.

Concerned at the speed with which Swimcoach3’s contact with their “Jane” was escalating, the Panorama team alerted police when Manning asked to meet for sex. Read more & comment »

The Government will need to make big reductions in the numbers “on the sick” in Britain’s former industrial heartlands if it is to get anywhere near its ambitious UK-wide target of a million off Incapacity Benefit by 2015, according to Professor Steve Fothergill of Sheffield Hallam University.

He tells BBC One’s Panorama that in the Incapacity Benefit hotspot of Merthyr Tydfil in South Wales – where nearly one in five of working age population is on the sick – around 3,000 new jobs would have to be created.

Across the South Wales valleys 35,000 new jobs would be required.

And Professor Fothergill and his team have just completed a major research project, interviewing more than 3,000 Incapacity Benefit claimants, that reveals it is not simply job creation that may prevent the Government reaching its target.

The new research has uncovered that nearly two-thirds of Incapacity Benefit claimants have no skills or qualifications at all.

Meanwhile, new figures provided to Panorama by the Department for Work and Pensions estimate the annual cost of paying Incapacity Benefits, plus associated Housing Benefit and Council Tax Benefit, has reached a staggering £16billion – that is more in a single year than the whole estimated cost of staging the London 2012 Olympics.

However, some Incapacity Benefit claimants have high expectations of what they might earn should they return to work.

Of the minority who said they would like a job, about a third of men and one in six women said they would need at least £300 a week after tax to make it worthwhile coming off Incapacity Benefits and going in to work.

That would mean a job paying around £20,000 a year.

Employment & Welfare Reform Minister, Stephen Timms MP, denies that getting people “off the sick” will lead to an increase in the unemployment figures as those on incapacity benefit simply shift from one benefit to another.

He tells Panorama: “I see no conflict at all between continuing to keep unemployment low and reducing the numbers of people on Incapacity Benefit in the way that we’ve set out.”

Panorama reporter Shelley Jofre meets a number of Incapacity Benefit claimants from Merthyr Tydfil including: Trevor who has been left without a medical assessment for 10 years, Peter and Rita who have recently been shifted from Incapacity Benefits on to Job Seekers allowance, and Calvin who has not worked for 20 years.

The programme examines whether any of them can be persuaded to find a job and, if they can, will any employer be willing to take them on?

Panorama: Britain On The Sick, BBC One, 8.30pm, Monday 19 May 2008

Panorama on BBC One on Monday talks to Lord Goldsmith, the former Attorney General, and General Sir Mike Jackson and asks them how the British Army reintroduced to Iraq five interrogation techniques, banned over 30 years ago.

The film, broadcast at 8.30pm, examines the consequences of bringing back the banned five techniques now that solicitiors are launching claims for compensation on behalf of Iraqis alleging mistreatment.

The programme goes on to weigh the evidence from the “Battle of Danny Boy” which is at the centre of the latest legal challenge.

Iraqi prisoners have made serious allegations of abuse against the British Army which the MoD is now reinvestigating despite previous inquiries which found nobody to be at fault. Read more & comment »

Industry official blows the whistle on criminals operating in UK security industry

An official close to the top of the regulator of Britain’s £7billion security industry has told BBC One’s Panorama that the industry is being infiltrated and illegally run by criminals exploiting loop holes in the law.

In the programme – to be broadcast tonight (Monday 21 January) at 8.30pm on BBC One – the high ranking Security Industry Authority (SIA) official told Panorama of his frustration with the SIA and its inability to deal with criminal and rogue security firms because of weak legislation. Read more & comment »

A member of the “Tapas 9″ will talk publicly for the first time about the night Madeleine McCann disappeared, on a
BBC One Panorama Special on Monday (19 November).

Jane Tanner defends the party’s decision not to talk to the media during the past six months – and insists that they have done everything asked of them by the Portuguese police.

She is adamant that she saw an abductor carrying Madeleine away from the McCann’s apartment.

And she hits back at reports that she wants to change her story.

“I’ve not spoken because the Portuguese police told us not to talk about the case at all and from day one we’ve done everything we can to help them with the investigation,” she said.

“… I’m talking now because I’m being called a liar and fantasist and all this and I know what I saw, and I think it’s important that people know what I saw, because I believe Madeleine was abducted.”

And Ms Tanner, of Exeter in Devon, also told of the moment she learend of Madeleine’s disappearance, as Kate McCann, Rachael Oldfield and Fiona Payne searched for her.

She said: “I went out to the front door of our apartment. I saw Rachael who came and said ‘Oh, Madeleine’s gone’ and so that was the first I heard about it. Read more & comment »

A Panorama investigation (Monday 12 November, 8.30pm, BBC One) reveals that one of the biggest and most influential studies of Attention Deficit and Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) ever done suggests that drugs widely used to treat children do not work in the long term.

The Department of Health can’t say how many children are on ADHD medication but the BBC has discovered that GPs in the UK prescribed powerful drugs like Ritalin and Concerta to around 55,000* children last year. Many stay on these drugs for years at a time. Last year alone this cost the NHS £28million**.

But new research from the US suggests that – while the drugs work in the short term – there is no demonstrable improvement in children’s behaviour after staying on ADHD medication for three years. Read more & comment »

Tonight’s (Monday 29 October, 8.30pm) Panorama on BBC One will focus on a five-year investigation into the conviction of Barry George for the murder of Jill Dando which has concluded that evidence central to the prosecution of Barry George was “inconclusive” and “should not have been admitted”.

The Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) commissioned new forensic reports and tests which they believe show the single particle of firearms residue found in a pocket of Barry George’s coat had no evidential value. Read more & comment »

With exclusive access to Alan Johnston, his family and the behind-the-scenes hostage negotiators, a Panorama special on BBC One tells the extraordinary story of the BBC correspondent’s 114 days held in captivity by the Army of Islam, a fanatical jihadist group in Gaza.

In a revealing interview with Jeremy Vine, Alan recalls the moments he feared he would be executed and explains how he composed himself in the face of death threats from his captors.

He tells of how his car was ambushed on the day of his kidnapping: “Very quickly he was alongside me pointing the gun through the door. I was vaguely aware of another gunman coming out of the other side of the kidnappers’ car and I knew immediately what was happening.” Read more & comment »

John Travolta has gotten behind a campaign to stop hte BBc from airing an expose on his religion of Scientology.

Travolta has written to BBC chiefs claiming that BBC reporter John Sweeney vents “personal prejudices, bigotry and animosity” and harbours “hatred against my religion”. Read more & comment »

Bob Woolmer was poisoned before his murder, reveals BBC One Panorama investigation

Pakistan cricket coach Bob Woolmer was poisoned before being strangled, BBC One’s Panorama reveals tonight.

The programme reveals that preliminary toxicology tests have shown there was a drug in his system that would have incapacitated Woolmer, leaving him unable to fight back.

It now seems certain that, as he was being strangled, he had already been rendered helpless. Read more & comment »