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Private Notes
Alcohol abuse is responsible for up to 40,000 deaths every year in Britain, as well as domestic incidents, absenteeism and crime. But the government, which spends £10 million per year combatting drugs, has no similar policy for dealing with drink. Panorama asks why the government has failed to change such destructive drinking habits.
Tonight, in the first programme of a special two part investigation on the reality of the welfare state, reporter Stephen Bradshaw looks at broken promises. Like families having to sell their parents homes to pay for old age care which they thought the state would provide, and the redundant who discover that claiming benefit traps them into dependency on the state.
The second programme of a special two-part investigation into the welfare state. Stephen Bradshaw looks at the implications of the middle classes increasingly looking to private insurance for everything from pensions, schools fees and medical care. However, forecasters predict that only five to ten per cent of British families will be able to afford the cost of private welfare, creating a divided society.
On 8 December last year, a ten-year-old boy from Stockport, Nicholas Geldard , died in a Leeds hospital. He had fallen ill the previous afternoon while playing on his computer at home. In his last hours he was taken to four different hospitals; refused an intensive care bed at four others - and denied access to one hospital's scanner because there was no cash to run the equipment at night.
The Bosnian Serb army stand accused of some of the worst war crimes to be committed since the end of the Second World War. As the war crimes tribunal gathers evidence, Panorama tells the inside story of what really happened when Srebrenica fell in July 1995.
As part of the week-long series Dealing with Drugs, a look at the increasing use of recreational drugs, not just among the young, but among the professional middle-classes. Panorama investigates whether society is beginning to adjust and even tolerate the drug culture.
Last year nearly 200 people were publicly beheaded in Saudi Arabia, yet the British Government does not criticise its closest Middle East ally. As the Home Office reconsiders its decision over the deportation of Saudi dissident Dr Mohammed Al Masari, John Ware reports on Britain's relationship with the regime.
Thomas Creedon was born severely brain-damaged. Unable to see or hear, he was kept alive only through modern medicine. His quality of life was such that his parents were prepared to take their case to the high court to fight for the right to let their son die. Thomas died of natural causes before his future could be decided in the courts. But for other families the same dilemmas still apply.
Are our children being let down by primary school education? New research suggests that over the last 25 years, standards in maths have fallen noticeably. Vivian White reports on what is going wrong in our primary schools and asks if there are hard lessons to be learnt from abroad.
So far BSE has meant the deaths of 160,000 cows and may lead to the condition Creutzfeldt Jakob Disease in humans. As the Government's handling of the "mad cow" crisis threatens to split Europe, Gerry Northam reports on a decade of official mistakes and cover-ups.
In the brave new world of privatised railways, it's cheaper to send trains by road than by rail. When trains need to be serviced, the new owners of the track charge operators so much that many prefer to load them onto trailers to be sent down the motorway. So trains can now cause traffic jams.John Ware asks, has privatisation of the railways gone off the rails?
Swifter, higher, stronger is the Olympic motto but has the athlete's ultimate dream to win gold created a culture of world-class cheats? Reporter Tom Mangold talks to Olympic athletes en route to this year's games who admit to having taken drugs and talks to the steroid gurus to reveal the hidden underground network behind the glamour of the centennial games.
Panorama begins with this report on the aftermath of the massacre when Thomas Hamilton killed 16 children and their teacher at Dunblane Primary School. As the Cullen Inquiry prepares to publish its report, BBC Scotland correspondent Jane Franchi talks to families whose children were murdered and the two teachers badly wounded in the shooting. She reveals how, despite so much being known about Hamilton's activities, little was done to stop him.
The spin doctors politicians rely upon to influence the news have been called "the men in the dark" . Do they pressure and cajole journalists and help politicians float stories that can later be denied, or simply protect their parties from a media obsessed with splits and personalities? In the run-up to the general election, reporter Steve Bradshaw reveals the spin doctors' tricks of the trade and asks whether British voters get the political debate they deserve.
Sir James Goldsmith is a billionaire at the gate of British politics - a financier who intends spending huge amounts of money promoting the Referendum Party at the next general election. The party's one-policy campaign has been dismissed in some quarters, yet Goldsmith's impact and money is widely feared.
As America prepares to vote for its next President and the candidates' election campaigns roll towards their conclusion, Edward Stourton journeys across the country on the trail of President Bill Clinton.
Statistics show that British women are committing more and more violent crimes. Panorama investigates the shift in the traditional role of women as victims or accessories to crime to the aggressor. Su Pennington talks to women who get a thrill from their own brutality, and to some victims of the disturbing trend.
Martin Sashir reports on what seems to be a wide scale ignorance of the easily-treatable Kawasaki disease, the biggest cause of heart disease among children in the western world.
Tonight, Peter Jay contrasts the political rhetoric of the last 20 years with the realities of the tax burden, to discover if anything has changed. Panorama hears from families, former Chancellor Norman Lamont and former Treasury chiefs to assess what impact changes have had.
With Christmas imminent. Panorama investigates allegations that the prices of hi-fis, televisions and fridges are being kept artificially high. and reporter John Ware explains why finding a bargain might be difficult this year.
