My colleague Tony Openshaw was interviewed for a phone in on BBC Radio Merseyside this morning. “The BBC put it to me,” Tony recalls, “that the Home Office had previously informed them the hunger strike by immigration detainees in HMP Liverpool ended on Thursday (26/7) night. I told them that visitors had spoken face to face with detainees yesterday (29/7) and learned that 60 - 80 were on hunger strike, and that medical checks on dehydration and weight loss were being carried out. What was the purpose to the medical checks if there was no hunger strike?”

I myself rang the Prison press office (020 7217 6633) and Home Office press office (020 7273 4545) at 9:05 am this morning (30/7). Both offices acknowledged there was a hunger strike, but gave no details on numbers. They said that detainees were going into the canteen and making purchases, but not taking prison food. I asked both offices to clarify and update me. Both promised to do so.

The Prison press office rang back at 11 to say the hunger strike was over. But at 12:15 they rang again to say the previous statement was incorrect, and that 2 people were refusing prison food but were drinking liquids and buying food from the canteen.

The Home Office rang back at 1:20 to echo the Prison press office account.

Whilst the Home Office has yet to acknowledge the scope of the hunger strike, they have finally dropped the fiction they fed the BBC.

This performance is typical disinformation by the prison service itself, to try and discredit the action of the hunger strikers. I have been involved with hunger strikes at Campsfield, Rochester, Haslar, Winson Green, and other detention centres. Each time, there’s been initial denial of a hunger strike. Then the authorities have denied the numbers on hunger strike. Then they deliberately try to discredit the hunger strikers by saying that they were seen entering the canteen. The press offices always imply that if they went into the canteen it was only to eat food. In fact the detainees use the canteen to socialise.