Bristol North West MP, Darren Jones, is on the panel for the launch of Fujitsu-backed ‘Labour Digital’ at the Labour Party conference in 2018. A brand new initiative from Labour to “reboot their digital policy.”
Introduced in full colour dull PowerPoint by their newly minted leader, Tom “Plasticine Man’ Renhard, togged up in his wedding suit at a swanky conference room at Ashton Gate stadium on Saturday, Bristol Labour Party are first out of the blocks with a local election manifesto.
The manifesto cover features a cheery little cartoon cover of multicultural pedestrians, happy cyclists, beaming schoolchildren, helpful coppers, trams, buses, windmills and, er, dead trees plastered onto a local independent retail backdrop. Produced in shades of red, it’s a bit George Ferguson on acid with the manifesto’s title, ‘Building Bristol’s Future’ providing mild threat for the paranoid.
The manifesto itself spells a departure from the Rees years. Marvin’s manifestoes provided a shopping list of promises he would then proceed to fail to deliver. His 2016 effort contained 78 uncosted promises and 38 vague commitments. The 2021 model slimmed things down to just 91 uncosted promises. Largely undelivered.
Renhard seems to have learned from this almighty mess of broken promises and has created a fuzzy document of vague aspiration instead. Delivered in hackneyed cliche with few indicators of how he would deliver on any of it, maybe Renhard knows he won’t have to?
Our team has combed through the 28 pages of English language wreckage and identified five stone cold, nailed down actual promises from Labour. These are: ‘build 3,000 council homes in the next five years’; ‘roll out more school streets’; ‘have more visible and responsive police and embedded PCSOs’; ‘protect the 100% Council Tax Reduction Scheme’ and ‘tackle anti-social behaviour, including fly-tipping, littering and graffiti tags, by hiring more enforcement officers and increasing fines‘.
We also discovered three almost promises in the manifesto. These fall short of actual promises as there’s little detail provided and few resources committed so it will be hard to hold them to account. These are: ‘upgrading and restoring our ageing infrastructure, including Bristol’s historic bridges and harbour’; ‘invest in road maintenance and pothole repair’ and ‘reduce violence against women and girls’.
Pretty much everything else in the document is vague aspirational waffle. In social care, which, according to Labour’s own figures is 43% of council spend, the big offer is, “We are partnering with Bristol’s public services to help ensure you can access the care you need, when you need it.”
From the party that has just tried (and failed) to remove disabled adults from their homes and shove them into residential care to save money, this is a pathetically weak policy response.
On education and children’s services, 22% of council spend, it’s hard to find much concrete. Just some waffle about “Helping children get the best start in life with more school places and better provision for SEND children; improving access to education and skills in our colleges and universities.”
Another weak response from the party that fucked up SEND provision years ago and is currently fucking it up all over again having signed up to the Tories’ vicious ‘Safety Valve’ SEND cuts programme.
On the big issue of youth knife crime, the Labour offer moves beyond pathetic. Promising to “improve CCTV and partner on youth engagement projects” alongside a further uncosted promise without detail to “support and invest in youth services.”
Is that it?
On transport, Labour commit to, “exploring ways to bring buses into public ownership”. Currently impossible under existing legislation. And they will “start now on the transport solutions of tomorrow” whatever that means. Their most interesting policy may be “seeking ways to take back control of our highway maintenance work through insourcing.”
On Green issues, the offer is more of Rees’s underpowered over-publicised City Leap. Originally a promise of a ‘billion pound’ private sector investment, this promise dropped to £500m recently. The Labour manifesto now introduces a new figure of “£771m planned investment in decarbonisation”.
The reality of City Leap last year was about £23m of public sector grants and city council cash spent on overpriced heat pumps in schools and some small retrofit pilots, which Labour’s US corporate partner trousered a profit from.
The final section of the manifesto is a section unoriginally called ‘Our City, Our Future’ where the big promise is “creating a safe, attractive, well-lit and welcoming city centre.”
Does that mean neighbourhoods outside the city centre can expect to be unsafe, unattractive, badly lit and unwelcoming?
I think we should be told.
Allotments? So what if the council doubles the rent? They’re for the chattering classes to grow rainbow chard while talking bollocks to each other about shit they read in the Guardian.
Wrong. Allotments have a history.
Our right to an allotment is the only compensation we have for the loss of our right to work common land that’s been systematically robbed from us over the last 1,000 years.
This robbery of land by the rich from the poor can be traced back to Norman Britain; was attacked by Sir Thomas More in ‘Utopia’ published in 1516; was directly challenged by the Diggers (they really did dig) after the English Civil War and caused the 1885 land reform campaign where ‘Three Acres and a Cow’ was the demand in the fight against poverty.
A series of laws followed. The 1887 Allotments Act, the 1892 Smallholding Act and the 1908 Smallholding and Allotments Act gave local authorities the power to create allotments. It’s not much in exchange for the robbery and privatisation of virtually all the country’s land by the wealthy but allotments and the odd tract of scrubby ‘common’ is all we have left.
When our money-grabbing Labour council casually announces it’s doubling the rent on our allotments, it’s the latest attempt to drive the country’s poorest from the remnants of our shared common land.
They can fuck off.
A handy source tells us that at a recent community meeting, low key, low effort Labour councillor for Central Ward, Farah “Way” Hussain, turned up with two Labour members and told residents they would be ‘replacement’ councillors and would be taking on casework.
One of these Labour bods then said something like “yes, we are already responding to councillor emails”. And, sure enough, in recent weeks “Farah” has magically started responding to her councillor emails.
This is all dodgy as fuck. Why is she allowing unelected individuals access to her private councillor emails?
Desperate times for Greens trying to get their national co-leader Carla “Head Girl” Denyer elected in the new constituency of Bristol Central.
Formerly Bristol West, the constituency of “Thingy” Thangam Debbonaire with a majority north of 10,000, the Greens are currently begging Tories to vote for them!
A leaflet dropped across the leafy constituency, notorious for its Guardian-reading electorate, explains “the Conservatives can’t win here” and has a Lib Dem-style graph where unidentified “independent polling experts” say the Green vote is up 3.4 per cent; Labour down 7.7 per cent and Tory down 4.5 per cent.
Meaning that Labour are set to easily win the constituency despite ecstatic noises from the Greens over their latest snooty candidate in a constituency they’ve insisted for years they can win.
Another issue: if “independent polling experts” say that the the combined Labour and Tory vote is down over 12 per cent and the Greens’ up 3.4 per cent, where the fuck have all the other votes gone?
Are voters giving up on the ‘progressive’ crap that the colour branded parties dump on us?
The Reverend’s increasingly fragile mental state was exposed again during a visit to Stapleton Road in February to stare at waste bins.
Accompanied by cabinet bozo Kye “The” Dudd, the local police team and local community representatives, it seems the Reverend hadn’t realised two of the Green councillors for the area had been invited too.
So he decided to start shouting at them, accusing them of spreading lies about him on social media, being backstabbers and moaning about the budget.
Stay classy and in control Marv!
The Bristolian newswire reveals that grim Green Tory Councillor for Clifton, Paula “Mickey” O’Rourke has withdrawn her celebrated resignation and will stand again next year as the posh ward’s greenwash candidate for business as usual.
Is this a plan to attempt to bring some centrist discipline to any Greens thinking about introducing any genuine left wing policies at Bristol City Council next year?
A suspicion not allayed by news that Mickey will be joined as a Clifton candidate by the Cotswold’s finest, Jerome “Unhinged” Thomas, an Oxbridge prat who quit as Green Clifton councillor in 2021 to spend more time with his property portfolio.
Jerome has been known to announce from the comfort of his million pound Clifton gaff that “we need a radical and changed approach to how we live in the world”.
We certainly do Jerome. Where shall we start?
Confirmation arrives of the number of candidates each of the four largest parties stood in local elections across the South West in May. Tories were ahead with 677 candidates covering 92 per cent of seats, down from 96 per cent four years ago. The Lib Dems were on 581, 79 per cent, up from 74 per cent.
Labour had 348 candidates, 47 per cent, 6 per cent down. While the Greens were close to overtaking Labour, challenging in 329 seats, 45 per cent, up from 33 per cent. Rumours suggest Labour, despite riding high in the polls, are struggling to find candidates for elections in Bristol.
Are there no dishonest centrist authoritarian bastards lacking a moral compass out there in Bristol West?
Bad look for snooty community newspaper Bristol Cobblers (surely Cable? ed) as local freelancer Joe Banks breaks cover to reveal that they pulled him off a story last year. Then rewrote it themselves under close supervision from the paper’s Labour Party-friendly directors!
Joe was investigating planning permission granted to MEPC, part of US corporate investment giant Federated Hermes, to develop the sensitive St Mary-le-Port site at Castle Park. He was especially interested in the role of a fake community group ‘The Friends of Castle Park’ who vigorously supported the development at planning committee claiming to represent the local community.
Joe’s enquiries seemed to upset Nicola “La La” Beech, Labour Cabinet member for planning, who went directly to the Cobbler’s directors – that conveniently included cabinet colleague, Tom “Plasticine Man” Renhard’s, partner – and accused Joe of “harassment”. Joe was unceremoniously dumped off the story, which was rewritten more to Labour Party tastes by one of the Cobbler’s useful idiots.
So much for speaking truth to power.
Shocked Bristolians listened in increasing horror as Shereena Abbassi, a director at The Bristol Cable, suggested on BBC Radio Four’s’ ‘Rethink’ programme on 2 August that vulnerable minorities should stay at home in order to avoid workplace ‘micro/macro aggressions’.
If you are a victim of any discrimination at work just crawl away and hide under the nearest rock says the former Worldwide Head of Culture and Inclusion at M&C Saatchi.
According to this ‘equity and Inclusion practitioner’, ‘black and brown folks’ are not adequately protected by the Equality Act and therefore should ‘exclude’ themselves from the workplace if they experience racial abuse!
Maybe she should ‘rethink’ her job title?
In May, the Nazi Post turned all comments beneath their articles off without explanation. Although sneering by its middle class graduate journalists at public comments below the line had been a feature of local social media for years.
Between the crazies and conspiracy nuts – still generally a brighter and more entertaining read than actual Post articles, mainly nicked off Reddit, by the ‘professionals’ – the majority of public comments were highly critical of the Reverend Rees and Bristol City Council.
Was this some sort of an editorial effort to reduce trenchant public criticism of Bristol City Council? A little local establishment help to prop up a bent shambles of a local public institution?
Whatever the reason, it seems to have failed. By the summer holidays comments under articles magically reappeared. With plenty of slagging of the Reverend and his council of fuckwits back in force.
Unilaterally censored by their local paper without explanation, did the Bristolian public start to vote with their feet?
Marvin, your State of the City speech seems to be a list of things that haven’t been delivered or resolved in your time in office.
Most of the key infrastructure projects that previous Labour council’s failed to invest in remain uninvested in but with a tab left to be picked up by the next administration.
There’s no funded mass transit proposal. It’s stalemated due to a lack of agreement between two bickering Labour Mayors who have prioritised their own personal animosity and egos above the needs of the city and region.
The city continues to have deep divisions along race and class lines despite all the talk about diversity, equity and inclusion and tackling the “issues”. Where are the measurable outcomes showing improvement?
But then you did watch the Colston statue come down and spot a self promotional media opportunity rather than a chance to trigger a real attempt to tackle the city’s long standing divisions.
Congratulations Marvin, you built some homes (the vast majority at market rates with many being bought by private landlords) and yet still managed to miss every housing target you set yourself.
The housing waiting list has increased to 20,000 families. The highest it has ever been, despite officers actively discouraging residents from going on the list “because it’s a waste of time”.
Homelessness remains noticeably present everywhere, except, maybe, in the Bearpit, despite your promise to solve it.
The vast majority of the 14,000 homes with planning permission are not being built and you try to blame a minority opposition party for this failure to deliver.
Still no arena, public or privately funded, anywhere. And tens of millions in public funds sunk into an elitist city centre cultural venue because of a binding legal contract signed on your watch. All while deprived suburbs lose community/cultural facilities.
City Leap has potential but so far isn’t unlocking any private investment and is falling behind its real investment plan, never mind this unsubstantiated £1bn you constantly quote at the press.
Goram Homes also has some potential but your planning delays means it’s falling massively behind schedule.
Bristol Waste is a basketcase with a revolving door board of directors. A direct result of poor corporate oversight. Your political interference in its business planning, meanwhile, has undermined any efforts to reduce costs.
Elsewhere, your council is still complicit in developing SNCIs despite declaring an ‘Ecological Emergency’ and creating plenty of photo-ops of Labour politicians standing in fields saying how important green spaces are.
There’s still no real plan for achieving net zero despite declaring a ‘Climate Emergency’.
Then there’s the poorly implemented CAZ, almost as if it was designed to fail and disrupt.
You are creating only one Liveable Neighbourhood and this is being poorly implemented and poorly consulted on with middle class neighbourhoods getting disproportionate input while poorer neighbourhoods are ignored.
Local CiL projects, especially transport and parks, are not being delivered partly because staff are being taken away to work on “headline grabbing” strategic projects.
The budget gap is currently larger than the Bundred one under Ferguson and there’s still no realistic plan to address it beyond service reduction and selling off council property.
SEND?!?!! Say no more. Your “Deputy” Mayor hasn’t a clue what she is doing just like the chain of useless Labour education leads before her. Our kids and, increasingly, their parents are paying the price of this serial incompetence.
The Dedicated Schools Grant is effectively in special measures and your administration is just crossing it’s fingers and hoping the government doesn’t pull the plug on this ever growing debt.
Basically Marvin, you have left behind a stinking pile of crap and then have the nerve to lecture the councillors who will have to clear up your shit about how the city should be run!!!
Get da fuck!