9:36am Wednesday 16th July 2008
WE STATED at the outset the aim of our Voices Against Violence campaign was to put as many of your comments as possible directly into the hands of Home Secretary Jacqui Smith.
While the campaign has been a great success in terms of collecting your thoughts on this emotive subject, our overall objective has fallen short.
A week before the campaign started, I sent an email to the Home Office press office outlining what the campaign's aims were and what we would like to do with the feedback from our readers. The email stressed we would only need 30 seconds with Jacqui Smith and we were happy to meet her anywhere to get a photo of the handover of your comments.
Three weeks into the campaign, we had received no reply. I emailed again, politely chasing our original request.
The reply came back saying the email had gone to the wrong person and asked if we could send it to someone else within the press office instead. In other words, it had just sat there, no-one had forwarded it on, no-one had bothered to ask me to send it to the right person - if I had not chased it, presumably it would have been ignored forever.
I forwarded the request to the right person, who offered us a meeting with crime reduction minister Vernon Coaker. But I felt 30 seconds with the Home Secretary was not too much to ask. Therefore, I rejected Mr Coaker and said I would still like a minute with Jacqui if at all possible.
A week later, the Home Office rang again. Jacqui was too busy to see us. Too busy for a photograph and to take an envelope off us. Too busy to listen to the people who had had their say on the violence wending its cursed path through our streets. Too busy U-turning on bizarre schemes to get knife-carriers into A&E departments to confront the victims of violent crimes.
Your messages will still get to the people who count - we're going to post all your comments through the Home Office's front door.
But it's telling the Home Secretary can't find even one minute to listen to the people she was elected to serve.
Richard Firth, News Shopper Editor
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