Video: the state

Toxic Town: The Corby Poisonings — Horizon, BBC

The unknown story of the worst child-poisoning case since thalidomide, featuring a landmark legal battle by a group of mothers determined to uncover the truth.

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The Million Pound Disability Payout — Panorama, BBC

The Department for Work and Pensions is meant to help disabled people get back into work. In this programme, reporter Richard Butchins discovers that it has lost more employment tribunals for disability discrimination than any other employer in Britain. He investigates why the DWP has paid its own employees nearly a million pounds of public money in both tribunal pay-outs and out-of-court settlements.

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Pegasus: Surveilling journalists from inside their phones — The Listening Post, Aljazeera

A look at the spyware that is hacking journalists around the world. Here is an offer many governments cannot refuse: do you want to hack into the phones of journalists, gather every bit of data and trace every call, message and keystroke? Those governments are in luck, as there is some malware — malicious software — designed specifically for that purpose.

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War Crimes Scandal Exposed — Panorama, BBC

The government announced the closure of investigations into alleged war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan before a single soldier was prosecuted. But has there been a cover-up at the highest levels of the British military? Reporter Richard Bilton meets UK detectives who talk for the first time about how they were prevented from prosecuting soldiers suspected of serious crimes. And he reveals evidence that suggests the Ministry of Defence and senior officers were involved in the cover-up of torture and illegal killings. Read news article.

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Unremembered: Britain's Forgotten War Heroes — David Lammy, Channel 4

David Lammy MP reveals the shocking story of how 100,000 or more Africans who died in their own continent serving Britain during World War I were denied the honour of an individual grave.

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George Clarke's Council House Scandal — Channel 4

A child of a council estate, George looks at the reasons for the steep decline in affordable public housing, before taking matters into his own hands in a bid to start a housing revolution.

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Inside China's Camps — Our World, BBC

China is now thought to be holding more than a million Muslims in giant camps in its far west region of Xinjiang. The authorities insist that the facilities are not prisons, but schools, where “thought transformation” is taking place to combat violent extremism. Reporter John Sudworth gets rare, highly controlled access to go inside and, despite official supervision, uncovers important evidence about the nature of the system.

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The Unwanted: The Secret Windrush Files — David Olusoga, BBC

David Olusoga opens secret government files to show how the Windrush scandal and the ‘hostile environment’ for black British immigrants has been 70 years in the making.

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The Massacre That Shook the Empire — Channel 4

Channel 4 documentary that examines one of the darkest days in British and Indian history. In The Massacre that Shook the Empire writer and journalist Sathnam Sanghera explores what happened on 13th April 1919 when a British General ordered troops to gun down a crowd of men, women, children and infants who were peacefully gathered in a park in Amritsar, India. With nowhere to run or hide, hundreds were killed, and over a thousand more were wounded. Read the press release.

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Undercover Cops: Abuse of Duty — BBC Wales Investigates

BBC Wales Investigates the story of undercover policing — officers paid to spy on political activists. But some overstepped the mark — having relationships with women, sleeping with women and even fathering children with them. Two Welsh women tell their full story on TV for the first time about the impact it's had on them, and how they hope those responsible will one day be held to account.

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Australia and New Zealand: Troubled Neighbours — Our World, BBC

For decades Australians and New Zealanders have had the right to live and work in each other's country — but those rights have now been curtailed by Australia. Thousands of New Zealanders are being deported from Australia, some with criminal convictions, but others on the grounds of ‘bad character’. The New Zealand government claims the policy breaches human rights conventions. Once the closest of neighbours, the special bond between Australia and New Zealand appears to be fracturing.

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Massacre at Ballymurphy — Callum Macrae

Award-winning director Callum Macrae's new feature documentary tells the story of the death of eleven innocent people killed by the British Army on a Catholic estate in Belfast in 1971, and the fight by their relatives and survivors to discover the truth. This is a massacre that few have heard of, yet it was one of the most significant events of the Troubles, coming as it did in the first days of internment and six months before Bloody Sunday. Macrae's film is a skilful mixture of investigative journalism, documentary storytelling and a reflection on contemporary history.

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Putin, Russia and the West (2011) — Brook Lapping, BBC

How the great Soviet superpower, crushed and humiliated, has been resurrected in the form of Vladimir Putin's new Russia. Vladimir Putin began his career as a KGB spy, but when he became president he made himself a valued ally of the west. How did he do it? And what made Washington and London turn against him? In this four-part series Putin's top colleagues — and the western statesmen who eventually clashed with him — tell the inside story of one of the world's most powerful men.

Part 1: Taking Control

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Part 2: Democracy Threatens

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Part 3: War

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Part 4: New Start

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France's Stolen Children — Our World, BBC

More than 2,000 children were taken to France from the Indian Ocean island of Reunion between the 1960s and early 1980s, as part of a French government plan to repopulate rural areas. Promised a better life and an education, many suffered sexual and physical abuse. Some, now middle-aged, are seeking an apology and compensation from the French state. For Our World, Katie Razzall travels from France to Reunion with two women searching for the families they lost more than 50 years ago.

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Russia: The Orthodox connection — People and Power, Aljazeera

What lies behind the close relationship between the Russian Orthodox Church and President Vladimir Putin? Under communism the Church was suppressed — its property confiscated, its followers ridiculed, harassed and imprisoned. But these days, a resurgent and muscular church is central to Putin's ideas of Russian identity — an echo chamber, say critics — to Kremlin policies at home and abroad. “Many of Putin's opponents believe the glowing endorsements and mutual back-slaps the Kremlin and the Orthodox Church give each other these days are contributing to ever more tightly defined social and religious conservatism, intolerant nationalism and a growing personality cult around the president,” write filmmakers Glenn Ellis and Viktoryia Kolchyna who went to Russia to investigate the relationship between Putin and the Church. “... it seemed to us that the rise of the Russian Orthodox Church was unstoppable.” So what lies behind these ever closer ties? What are the implications? And after decades of suppression, how did this renaissance come about?

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Putin's Family Values — Unreported World, Channel 4

Marcel Theroux investigates the resurgence of the Russian Orthodox Church, accompanied by a movement that promotes family, God and country, but which has a darker, intolerant side.

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Failed By The State: The Struggle in the Shadow of Grenfell — Redfish

Redfish presents its debut: An exclusive grassroots report into how austerity and gentrification caused the Grenfell tragedy, one of the deadliest fires in recent UK history.

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The Scots who fought Franco — STV Productions

Over 500 Scots fought in the Spanish Civil War which devastated Spain 70 years ago. Emotions and memories of this extraordinary conflict are still alive and poignant. This documentary, narrated by actor David Hayman, remembers the major conflict through unseen, unique archive interviews with Scots who joined the International Brigade, or Brigaders as they are known.

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Chasing Asylum (2016) — Eva Orner

Exposes the impact of Australia's offshore detention policies through the personal accounts of people seeking asylum and whistleblowers. Anyone picked up making the treacherous journey across the Indian Ocean is sent to Australian off-shore detention camps on the remote tropical islands of Manus and Nauru. Once there, men, women and children are held in indefinite detention, away from media scrutiny. Featuring never-before-seen footage of the appalling living conditions and shocking testimonies from both detainees and camp workers, Chasing Asylum exposes the impact of this policy on those seeking a safer home.

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Lawful Killing: Mark Duggan — Acme Films, BBC

Drama documentary about the police shooting of Mark Duggan in Tottenham in August 2011. The incident triggered the worst riots in modern British history. But while the impact of the event extends far beyond the Duggan family and the community of Tottenham, key details about what actually happened that day remain unclear — shrouded in secret intelligence and obscured by misreporting which remained uncorrected for days, leaving the public with only a partial understanding of the event. To try to understand what happened, this film hears from those close to the story, combining documentary interviews with dramatised reconstruction of the 24 hours leading up to the shooting. Interviews with Mark Duggan's family and friends, journalists and experts are combined with verbatim testimony re-enacted from the transcripts of evidence given at the coroner's inquest by witnesses and police officers.

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I, Daniel Blake, Red Tory Treachery and Orgreave with Ken Loach — Going Underground, RT

Afshin Rattansi speaks to award-winning director, Ken Loach about his latest film I, Daniel Blake, food banks, benefit sanctions, Orgreave and using poverty as a political weapon.

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Orgreave Justice — One to One Development Trust

A short film made for the Orgreave Truth and Justice Campaign released in December 2015 in conjunction with papers being submitted to the then Home Secretary Theresa May asking for an Inquiry into the police handling of what became known as the Battle of Orgreave.

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True Spies (leftwing edit) — BBC

This three-part BBC documentary series was broadcast in 2002. It reveals how the British Secret State spied on so-called “subversives” in the media, trade unions and political organisations. Through the use of surveillance, infiltration and informants, MI5 and Special Branch worked together to disrupt legitimate political action. The versions featured here have been re-edited to remove most of the rightwing bias found in the original broadcast versions, and therefore have shorter running times.

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Dirty Tricks, Spying and Corruption: Ricky Tomlinson on the Shrewsbury 24 Papers — Going Underground, RT

Afshin Rattansi goes underground on the Shrewsbury 24. Star of the Royle Family and member of the Shrewsbury 24, Ricky Tomlinson tells Going Underground why, 44 years on the government refuses to release the secret documents they have on him. Plus why he is not being allowed to participate in Lord Pitchford’s inquiry into undercover policing.

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The Loughinisland Report — Spotlight, BBC

Mandy McAuley reports on a new Loughinisland finding of police and loyalist collusion and investigates state links to a South African arms shipment.

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Who Bombed Birmingham? (1990) — Rob Ritchie and Mike Beckham, Granada Television

The made-for-TV film Who Bombed Birmingham? was first broadcast in 1990. Directed by Mike Beckham, the film is directly inspired by the painstaking efforts of then-journalist Chris Mullin to prove the six men convicted of the 1974 Birmingham pub bombings had been the victims of a miscarriage of justice, as detailed in his 1986 book Error of Judgement: The Truth about the Birmingham Bombings.

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Britain's Secret Terror Deals — Panorama, BBC

British security forces have been accused of involvement in dozens of murders during the Troubles in Northern Ireland. Reporter Darragh MacIntyre investigates allegations that the state colluded with paramilitary killers and covered up their crimes. He meets the families who have been fighting for decades to uncover the government's darkest secrets and he confronts some of those believed to be complicit.

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Secret Society (1987) — Duncan Campbell, BBC

Six-part series that disclosed the culture of secrecy in government and lack of public accountability for its actions. The Thatcher administration had different ideas. Before the show was broadcast Strathclyde police raided the BBC's Scottish headquarters and Duncan Campbell's home, seizing the tapes. Although these were later returned, two episodes, Secret Cabinet Committees and Zircon were banned from broadcast in an act of good, old fashioned red-pen censorship. Watch all of them here, including the two banned episodes.

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Westminster behind Closed Doors: with Tony Benn (1995) — Parliamentary Films, BBC

Westminster, the seat of successive Parliaments for 700 years, is portrayed in this video like never before. For twelve months Tony Benn walked around with a camera meeting the people and finding the places that visitors, and even MPs, never see. There are fire-fighters, canteen staff and engineers who occupy tiny ante-chambers and lost corridors.

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The Police's Dirty Secret — Dispatches, Guardian

Through the personal testimony of a former Special Demonstration Squad (SDS) officer, a joint investigation examines the ethically dubious tactics of a clandestine unit within the Metropolitan police and reveals the names of high-profile targets. Peter Francis, who spent four years living undercover, is the first officer from the SDS to publicly speak out. His testimony includes allegations that SDS undercover police officers were asked to look for intelligence that could be used to discredit the family of murdered teenager Stephen Lawrence and their campaign.

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Hillsborough: How They Buried the Truth — Panorama, BBC

Investigation that reveals how police, politicians, lawyers and judges all played a part in burying the truth about Britain's worst football disaster. Never-before-broadcast footage of the FA Cup semi-final in which 96 Liverpool fans died reveals a catastrophic failure by the emergency services, how lives might have been saved and how subsequent inquiries were misled. And a former home secretary and former police chiefs are put on the spot about why a succession of official investigations left the truth hidden for a generation.

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Finucane Report Reveals Shocking Levels of Collusion — Channel 4 News, BBC

A 500-page report has confirmed that agents of the British state were involved in the 1989 murder of Belfast solicitor Pat Finucane. The review found RUC officers proposed the killing, said they passed information to his killers and failed to stop the attack and then obstructed the murder investigation. It also found that an Army intelligence unit, the FRU, “bears a degree” of responsibility because one of their agents, Brian Nelson, was involved in selecting targets.

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Who's Watching the Detectives? — Panorama, BBC

As the Independent Police Complaints Commission is handed the investigation into Hillsborough, the biggest policing scandal in UK history, reporter Mark Daly investigates whether the body that polices the police is fit for purpose. Panorama hears from families who say they have been failed by the police watchdog and examines growing concerns that it does not have sufficient power or the independence to hold the police to account.

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The Power Principle: Corporate Empire and the Rise of the National Security State — Metanoia Films

“A gripping, deeply informative account of the plunder, hypocrisy, and mass violence of plutocracy and empire; insightful, historically grounded and highly relevant to the events of today.” — Michael Parenti.

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The Spy Factory — James Bamford

In this program, an eye-opening documentary on the National Security Agency by best-selling author James Bamford, Nova exposes the ultra-secret intelligence agency's role in the failure to stop the 9/11 attacks and the subsequent eavesdropping program that listens in without warrant on millions of American citizens.

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After Dark: Secrets (1987) — Open Media

Late-night discussion programme that explores government secrecy. Features psychological warfare operative Colin Wallace, who was wrongly convicted of manslaughter in 1980. Journalist Paul Foot suggested that Wallace may have been framed by British security services in a bid to discredit his allegations that members of the intelligence community had attempted to rig the 1974 General Election. Wallace was involved with the ‘Clockwork Orange’ project.

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Cashing In On Degrees — Dispatches, Channel 4

With students facing massive increases in their fees, Dispatches investigates the pay, perks and privileges enjoyed by universities' top earners. Journalist Laurie Penny reveals the increasing commercialisation of higher education and the subsequent lowering of standards, and asks what happens when universities scour the globe for students and funds.

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You can run... but can you hide? — Panorama, BBC

Is Britain on its way to becoming a surveillance society, or has it already arrived?

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Tony Benn — HARDtalk, BBC

Stephen Sackur talks to the former Labour cabinet minister and asks him whether the British government really is endangering fundamental freedoms.

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The Age of Terror: In the Name of the State — Jon Blair

Documentary that looks at the US-backed Contras in Nicaragua, the notorious School of the Americas and Argentina's Dirty War of the late 1970s and 80s.

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Rong Radio — Kary Stewart, GNN

British poet and activist Benjamin Zephaniah on the hypocrisy of the Queen and the British establishment, who tried to bring him into the fold and failed. His article on why he refused the Queen's honour can be read here: ‘Me? I thought, OBE me? Up yours, I thought’

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