Tag Archives: Jay Tidmarsh

GREEN CRAPITAL: YES, IT REALLY IS SHIT!

green cap

MELTDOWN

“IN life you often have to spend money to make money,” guffed SIR GUS HOYTY TOYTY, Uncle George’s pale green footrest, as the former line cook turned finance expert explained to us last November why he was paying a yankee CORPORATE MARKETER with no knowledge of Bristol or green issues a cool £250k to run the Green Capital shambles.

Meanwhile UNCLE GEORGE told us back in December, “European Green Capital is one of Bristol’s greatest opportunities and I wanted to find the best person in the world to run it. I am confident that KRIS DONALDSON is that person.”

George also assured us he had set the well-remunerated yank some tough targets, saying he needed to “raise millions”. Fast forward ten months and despite the tough targets it looks like George and Sir Gus’s brilliant appointment has raised a great big, fat, best-person-in-the-world ZERO for the Green Capital.

Indeed, so utterly hopeless was the yank that he was briefly PULLED from his post last month and then SACKED altogether from running the project he’s been paid a bomb to make a success. City Council Chief Exec NICOLA “LADY GAGA” YATES has now been given the reins for an undisclosed rate on top of her city council £140k pa day job.

Those in the know tell us, “it’s unlikely Gaga will be any more competent. She knows nothing about Bristol having been here about five minutes and her green credentials stretch to a paper recycling box in her office and a tin of organic coffee. Personally, I wouldn’t rely on her to find Sea Mills on a map if her life depended on it.”

Oh, happy days …

THE THICK OF IT

Listeners to John “DARTH” Darvall on Radio Bristol were treated to an entertaining Green Capital car crash last month.

Step forward yankee idiot KRIS DONALDSON “DUCK” – the sacked Green Capital chief exec who creamed a six-figure salary from the public purse – and his partner in slime Green Capital chair, plummy-voiced thicko ANDREW “SPESH” GARRARD from – would you believe? – the Society of the Merchant Venturers,

The undynamic duo were laid low by a series of Bristolians asking SIMPLE QUESTIONS during a phone-in about the Green Capital. For instance, ‘Betty from Westbury on Trym’ wanted to know why the council wasn’t able to keep the streets clear of rubbish and litter. A query way beyond Donaldson Duck and Spesh’s limited abilities.

It makes you wonder how a Merchant Venturer buffoon like Spesh ever landed the gig running our Green Capital? Could it have anything to do with the fact he was the second largest CASH DONOR to “Uncle” George’s election campaign?

Records seen by The BRISTOLIAN show Garrard handed a cool £2,500 of cash over to Ferguson to help get him elected. The biggest donor was Merchant Venturer (are you seeing a pattern here?) ANDREW NISBET who chucked George £6,244.

Other Venturers who splashed out to get George elected included TREVOR SMALLWOOD, former executive chairman of FIRSTGROUP buses and execrable establishment lackey, JAY TIDMARSH.

Indeed, over half of the cash for “Uncle” George’s election expenditure came from Merchant Venturers. What a surprise …

EVENTS DEAR BOY, EVENTS

More fun as what remains of the Green Capital’s team of out-of-town dickheads with masters degrees announced their SCHEDULE OF EVENTS for 2015 straight off the back of a fag packet.

Highlights include the creation of a TIRED CLICHÉ (surely blue whale? Ed.) sculptured out of rubbish, a few WANKY LECTURES featuring the likes of Guardian fruitbat-in-chief George Monbiot; a competition to design a bloody PHONE APP branded as a ‘Green tech festival’ and the opening event, inevitably featuring circus from CIRQUE “BOURGEOISE” BIJOU.

To pad out this total lack of anything much happening, Gaga’s Green Capitalists have chucked information into the programme about random Green stuff that’s already happening anyway.

Hence in February ‘ELECTRIC VEHICLE CHARGING’ is listed as an event alongside ‘METROBUS’.
This is on the basis that “Bristol anticipates approvals from the Department of Transport for the region’s remaining MetroBus route”. And means Lady Gaga’s city council PR team will produce a gushing press release of more lying bollocks about their godawful BRT bus project. What an event! Be sure to tell the kids!

Also featured is Uncle George’s boyfriend and establishment brown-noser, LUKE “GISSA GRANT” JERRAM – the man who created the slowest waterslide in human history on Park Street.

He’s now being paid to put up 200 kids’ swings at an undisclosed cost to “to bring the fun factor to the Green Capital of Europe programme” despite the fact that plenty of us are having plenty of fun at the expense of Gissa Grant & Co’s Green Capital ‘crap factor’ already, thanks.

We say sack the lot of these tossers now and instead divvy up the money and dish it out to the city’s underfunded community groups that are being destroyed by austerity.

FERRY STRANGE

MAYOR AT CENTRE OF FINANCIAL COLLAPSE OF DOCK’S FERRY SERVICE

FERRRRYYYY

A scandal is emerging around Bristol Mayor, “Uncle” George Ferguson’s role in the failed BRISTOL FERRY BOAT COMPANY LTD. The company, which ran the blue and yellow ferries around the docks and received considerable council and government subsidies, crashed with £300K DEBTS, no paid-up basic insurance cover for passengers and owing Bristol City Council £11k in mooring fees at the time Ferguson was elected in November 2012.

Indeed, on his very first day at work at the Council House on November 18 2012, it seems super successful businessman Uncle George, who owned A 40% STAKE in the company, was busy planning to LAY OFF 30 STAFF at his failed company and calling in the administrators! Although he blustered to gullible Nazi Post reporters at the time, “I have never been involved in the day-today running of the company.”
Then things get murkier. By early January 2013 a new company, with a remarkably similar name, FERRYBOATS BRISTOL had appeared and was running the very same boats on the very same routes around the docks. This new company, operated by what was described as “a consortium of investors”, curiously, was managed by one of the directors of Ferguson’s failed ferry company, IAN ‘BUNGLE” BUNGARD.

However, Bristol Ferry Boats Ltd didn’t last long either. By May 2013 a third entity, this time a cooperative venture, with yet another similar name took over the boats and the operation, BRISTOL COMMUNITY FERRY BOAT COMPANY.

Again the director from Ferguson’s failed ferries, BUNGLE, was aboard along with his wife, PHILLIPA, and they were joined by Ferguson associates like his old WELLINGTON SCHOOL chum, Sustrans twit JOHN “REALLY” GRIMSHAW; local urbanist and architect twerp KEITH “TIMMY” HALLETT; Merchant Venturer JAY TIDMARSH and, our favourite, SUE LEARNER, described in the company prospectus as Phillipa Bungard’s midwife!

A lot of questions can be asked about what this gang of posh Bristol establishment insiders, random midwives and ‘FRIENDS OF GEORGE’ were up to.

Not least, how did they manage to obtain a series of PRIME FERRY ROUTES around the city docks without having to go through a city council tender process against the vastly better run NUMBER 7 FERRY company?

This tender process, coincidentally, is the direct responsibility of our old friend, the city council’s dribbling mentally ill loon of a docks boss, CAP’N TONY “AHAB” NICHOLS.

Legally, neither of these new ferry companies had any right whatsoever to routes that were awarded by open tender to a completely separate legal entity. Public procurement rules forbid this. So why didn’t Ahab RETENDER the routes as he’s LEGALLY OBLIGED to do rather than hand them quietly over to a local group of wealthy and influential individuals who just happened to be very friendly with the mayor?

Another unanswered question is what happened to all the PUBLIC MONEY that went in to the original basketcase ferry boat company, 40% owned by the mayor? Hundreds of thousands have been poured in by the city council since 2002 and the company even received a government development loan of £125k in 2009.

How were DEBTS OF £300K ever run up? How was the company able to obtain city council tenders while being FINANCIALLY UNVIABLE? Especially strange when you consider that rival firm, Number 7 Ferries, operates similar routes on the same waterway at a PROFIT.

The final question arises over the use of so-called “PHOENIX COMPANIES”. These are new companies set up to trade in the same activities as a former company so it looks like “business as usual” to customers. Phoenix companies can also use directors from a former failed company.

However, while this is legal in certain cases if investors have been properly notified of the circumstances, elsewhere companies that have carried out this DODGY PRACTICE have attracted criticism in the media and parliament as it allows companies to effectively dump their liabilities, walk away from debt and start all over again at an unfair advantage.
The formation of a Phoenix Company is subject to regulation by the DTI. So watch this space …