AWP JOB CUTS UPDATE: UNISON AMBLE INTO ACTION

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Unison are now officially IN DISPUTE with Avon and Wiltshire Partnership (AWP) mental health trust over a proposed ‘admin review’ (BRISTOLIAN #48 ). The review will see over 70 jobs cut or downgraded by a trust whose main concern is CLEARING A DEFICIT rather than CARING for patients.

AWP is a struggling mental health trust and losing scores of skilled administrators will pile MORE PRESSURE ON FRONTLINE STAFF already over-burdened with heavy workloads. Unison are gearing up for a strike ballot but, without support from outside the trust, any strike WILL FAIL.

Bristol Care Workers Network (BCWN) are supporting the WORKERS AND RANK-AND-FILE UNISON MEMBERS fighting to protect their jobs and public services at AWP. BCWN have been active in spreading AWARENESS about the dispute and AGITATING among the affected staff to vote in favour when a strike ballot finally happens.

BCWN say, “we are especially keen to speak to any workers in AWP (whether you are a Unison member or not) who are worried about the job cuts and who want to TAKE A STAND. We want to build a GRASSROOTS MOVEMENT within the trust; to SUPPORT THE STRIKE, to KEEP THE PRESSURE ON UNISON to do right by us and to TAKE OVER THE STRUGGLE if and when Unison let us down.”

More details at https://bristolcareworkersnetwork.org/

COUNCIL LAWYER’S PUBLIC RANT AT WHISTLEBLOWERS

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Our attention has been drawn to THE BIZARRE CONDUCT of Saida “Ding-Dong” Bello, the chair of Bristol City Council’s BMEG group, which is supposed to represent the interests of the council’s long-suffering black employees. Such as the ones who had to go and WHISTLEBLOW to the Nazi Post in January to get heard.

When not BMEGing for the council, Ding-Dong Bello is a part time lawyer at the council and also a PART-TIME JUDGE sitting on the Valuation Tribunal for England. So the establishment is strong in this one.

Before her colleagues’ brave appearance in the Nazi Post complaining about a cover-up of ENDEMIC RACIST BULLYING at the council, we hear Ding Dong Bello fired off a FURIOUS ROUND ROBIN EMAIL to members of BMEG. “It has come to my attention that the issue of ongoing complaints has been leaked inappropriately to the press and that it is due to be printed in the near future,” she ranted.

“This behaviour is CONTRARY to our five organisational values of ownership, respect, curious, collaborative and dedicated,” she raved at whistleblowers LEGALLY ENTITLED TO PROTECTION from the council.

Presumably, then, BULLYING black workers, FAILING to investigate their complaints properly and then UNLAWFULLY insinuating they’re breaching their contract of employment by complaining is a fine example of these amazing new organisational values in action? In the circumstances, the response by the whistleblowers to Bello’s attempt to bully and threaten them was remarkably COOL and SANGUINE.

“Her comments have not been sanctioned by the group as a whole,” they pointedly observed

LIES, DAMN LIES AND AFFORDABLE HOUSING

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Bad news for the Reverend’s housing supremo Paul “Wolfie” Smith as his dream to turn the former Maes Knoll Elderly People’s home at Hengrove into AN OASIS OF AFFORDABLE HOUSING is scuppered by Sovereign Housing Association.

We note with interest from Sovereign’s website that they have new 3-bed “AFFORDABLE” homes on the site up for sale for £118,800 “BASED ON PURCHASING A 40% SHARE“. This means Sovereign are valuing a whole home at a less than affordable price of £295k. At least £50k MORE than any 3-bed home in the immediate vicinity!

Also, according to press reports, just 15 homes in this new development are AFFORDABLE, which, if we assume each has the average Bristol household occupancy of 2.3 people, means they will house 35 PEOPLE in need of affordable or social housing. A NET DECLINE IN SOCIAL AND AFFORDABLE PROVISION on the site, which used to provide a home for 40 ELDERLY PEOPLE at social rent.

There is, however, a large increase in expensive private housing for profit on what used to be our plot of land.

HEAD BOY SALARY SHAME EXPOSED

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The Reverend’s next large-sums-of-cash-needlessly-handed-to-bosses SCANDAL stepped up a gear in January when the council’s HR Committee DEMANDED that council boss Mike “Billie Jean” Jackson advertise the post of Executive Director – Growth & Regeneration “WITH IMMEDIATE EFFECT”.

The committee also asked that their views “REGARDING THE PROCESSES WHICH HAD BEEN FOLLOWED for the appointment to the role of Interim Executive Director – Growth & Regeneration, be raised with the Chair, Vice-Chair and Independent Member of the Audit Committee.”

This is all about a report requested by Green Councillor Paula “Mickey” O’Rourke and produced by the council’s latest legal boss, “L’il” Tim O’Gara, into the ongoing employment of Colin “Head Boy” Molton on £1,500 A DAY as Interim Executive Director – Growth & Regeneration since September 2017.

Obviously, the contents of this report are A CLOSELY GUARDED SECRET, but we’re happy to tell you what it contains. Basically, Bristol City Council have FAILED to follow their own procedures in relation to Head Boy’s employment and this senior officer appointment has NEVER been authorised by either Full Council or the HR Committee as the council’s constitution requires.

Unfortunately it’s unclear, at present, who agreed the ongoing employment of Head Boy outside the rules and on HIS OWN HIGHLY LUCRATIVE PERSONAL TERMS beyond anything he could earn as an authorised employee of Bristol City Council. Instead the council claim they are UNABLE TO LOCATE ANY DOCUMENT ANYWHERE authorising Molton’s appointment although, “it’s highly likely his £1,500 daily charge is regularly signed off by HR and Workforce twit, John “Bedwetter” Walsh,” says our source.

So far Head Boy and his patron, the Reverend Rees, are kicking the can down the road on this issue and Head Boy’s job is YET TO BE ADVERTISED as it needs to be. Are close friends Head Boy and the Reverend arrogantly digging their heels in, believing SELF-STYLED CITY LEADERS are above the little people’s public sector employment rules?

Watch this space …

NO ENERGY FOR WORKERS

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Bristol’s Labour council continues to impress with its militant support for the workers. A PCS Union organiser was recently THROWN OFF the council’s 100 Temple Street site by security while trying to speak with Department of Work and Pensions staff based there.

Security told the organiser that SENIOR COUNCIL BOSSES wanted him gone after they got a complaint from bosses at BRISTOL ENERGY, the caring sharing energy company costing us millions.

Seems these community-minded energy folk are actually A BUNCH OF FASCISTS who don’t like trade union organising.

Fancy that.

BUSINESS NOT BOOMING

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It’s trebles all round for the variety of FAILING BUSINESSES run by our council. At last month’s Cabinet meeting, politicians not only agreed a further £6MILLION HANDOUT for Bristol Energy, which has now had £37.7million of our money, but decided that Bristol Holding, the parent company for Bristol Energy, Bristol Waste and their low key data gathering firm, Bristol is Open, now needs AN EXECUTIVE CHAIRMAN on a cool £150k a year.

This expensive appointment is the prelude to the council’s City LEAP energy venture where public assets and infrastructure such as wind turbines, solar panels and local heat networks will be handed over to Bristol Holding, basically A PRIVATE FIRM outside any useful public oversight. The holding company will then be able to use these assets as sweeteners to attract private sector investment. A plan that has all the characteristics of yet ANOTHER COUNCIL GIVEAWAY TO THE PRIVATE sector.

The Reverend’s finance chief, Craig “Dick” Cheney, also used City LEAP as the excuse for keeping his LOSS MAKING SHAMBLES of an energy firm afloat for reasons he didn’t make very clear. Will we end up funding this LOSS-MAKING VANITY FIRM indefinitely while the private sector gives it a wide berth and cherry picks other valuable public assets for PROFIT? It was also quietly announced at the same meeting that Bristol University was pulling out of the underperforming joint venture data gathering firm Bristol is Open. Although it’s not yet clear whether the university JUMPED or were PUSHED.

How long before our council is handing any ‘smart city data’ they’ve gathered about us over to the private sector hawks that are circling?

ARCHITECTURE HACK’S BUSINESS KNACK WITH A PLAQUE

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The Reverend’s FAILED EFFORT to put a ‘corrective plaque’ on the statue of Colston to highlight the dodgy merchant’s leadership role in the slave trade was managed by Peter “Arse” Insole, the council’s architectural officer. Initially Arsehole let local historian Madge “The Doc” Dresser devise some words for the new plaque with the help of children from COTHAM GARDENS PRIMARY SCHOOL (formerly Colston’s Primary).

However, left entirely UNSUPERVISED to do what the hell he liked, Arsehole soon went over to the dark side and allowed the Merchant Venturers and their arselicking friends in Clifton to DRASTICALLY REWRITE The Doc’s plaque until it became a MEANINGLESS PIECE OF MUMBO JUMBO that the Reverend finally had to bin as not fit-for-purpose.

Now it’s come to our attention, that in order to assist the Doc with her pointless work with local children, Arsehole PERSONALLY PROCURED a specialist private education firm, MYERS-INSOLE LOCAL LEARNING COMMUNITY INTEREST COMPANY. And, by amazing coincidence, the SECRETARY and DIRECTOR of the firm, according to Companies House, just happens to be, er, Peter Insole while the only other director is one Ruth Myers, Arseholes partner! How convenient for his personal bank account that Arsehole’s RIGOROUS PROCUREMENT PROCESS should throw up his own firm as best placed to do the job.

Although it’s a shame that it’s not only against all known council rules for Arsehole to procure his own company for his own financial benefit but also against the law.

LOCAL LABOUR TRIGGER UNHAPPY

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GOOD NEWS for the Reverend Rees as he’s “overwhelmingly” reselected to stand for mayor in 2020 for Bristol’s Labour Party. Although it looks like the Reverend’s well-remunerated sidekick Kevin “Slo” Slocombe may have worked tirelessly BEHIND THE SCENES stitching-up the procedures for the ‘trigger ballot’ that decided the Reverend could not be challenged for the Labour candidacy.

Labour’s ‘trigger ballot’ rules were CHANGED at their last conference so that ward branches (of members) and party affilliates (staffed by bureaucrats) are balloted SEPARATELY and if either section has ONE THIRD in favour of a selection process then one is run. Under the old rules, there was ONE BALLOT requiring a simple majority for branches and affiliates combined. This tended to favour affiliates, such as trade unions who CONSIDERABLY OUTNUMBER WARD BRANCHES. For example, in Bristol, there are 25 ward branches and 92 affiliates, which means membership votes were outnumbered almost three to one by the bureaucrats.

However, trade union insider, Slo Kev’s LOBBYING of eager right wing bosses at Labour’s South West Region, who LOATHE the Corbynite rank and file of their party, persuaded them to bend the rules and allow the Reverend’s trigger ballot to be run UNDER THE DODGY OLD RULES. This meant even if every Labour ward branch in Bristol had voted for a reselection process, THERE WOULD NOT BE ONE if the affiliates decided they didn’t want one.

And so it came to pass that the Reverend was reselected as Labour’s candidate even though many wards hadn’t even had time to run a ballot before they were STOPPED by Labour’s dodgy regional bosses because of the impending Euro elections. Other wards complain their selection meetings weren’t QUORATE (ie. there were not enough members there). The Reverend’s own branch, Easton and Lawrence Hill tell us their vote wasn’t quorate but an ‘indicative vote’ was 32 – 5 AGAINST their own member.

Over at the Hartcliffe, Withywood and Bishopsworth branch, the meeting was quorate but the ballot paper WASN’T WORDED CORRECTLY so couldn’t be counted. While in Eastville, the Reverend’s former election agent, Kelvin Blake FORGOT to invite any party officials to their ballot and declared a victory for Rees despite the meeting not being quorate! In fact, the only branch we can find that legitimately voted for Rees were the wealthy liberals of Redland keen on a reheated Blairite to maintain the status quo.

What a shambles. Is this a party fit to run a city?

“ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE”

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The quote above was used to condemn the victims of Josef Stalin in the 1930s show trials, recently given a new lease of life by US President Donald Trump in reference to Julian Assange, independent journalist of international repute and founder of WikiLeaks.

As the South-West’s lone voice of bold, independent and uncompromising journalism, The BRISTOLIAN here makes a public editorial statement of SOLIDARITY with fellow journalist JULIAN ASSANGE, who, after having his ASYLUM at the Ecuadorian Embassy REVOKED in a CLEAR, UNPRECEDENTED BREACH of international law, is now being held in 23HR PER DAY SOLITARY confinement in Belmarsh Prison under an absurdly DRACONIAN interpretation of bail law.

Refused LEGITIMATE ACCESS to his defence lawyers, solely FOR DOING HIS JOB AS A JOURNALIST, Assange is furiously fighting extradition to face a SECRET ‘grand jury’ court in the USA, where a potential sentence of 175 YEARS for alleged ‘espionage’ awaits him.

Assange has been consistently hounded, smeared and abused in the mainstream media, simply because his organisation broke the TRUE STORY OF US WAR CRIMES COMMITTED IN IRAQ IN 2007. The Guardian and the New York Times at the time made lots of publicity (and money) from assisting his revelations. Yet both the “LIBERAL” AND CONSERVATIVE voices of mainstream media opinion have since fused into ONE SINGLE CACOPHONY OF GRUNTING PIG-HUMANS straight out of George Orwell’s ANIMAL FARM.

Both Assange and CHELSEA MANNING (his heroic, principled source for exposing the 2007 mass murders) have been alternatively IGNORED, CONDEMNED, RIDICULED or DISMISSED in the mainstream press, Manning’s Trans-status notwithstanding (normally a favourite cause in the identity-politics-focused Guardian – but oddly NOT in relation to THE MOST IMPORTANT ISSUE FOR PRESS FREEDOM TODAY).

The BRISTOLIAN therefore exhorts its readership to support and show full solidarity with Julian and Chelsea. For if they can come for Assange and Manning in such a way and get away with it, then ONE DAY THEY WILL COME FOR US ALL.

* The latest news from WikiLeaks, suppressed by the mainstream media, is that Assange has fallen seriously ill and is in Belmarsh Prison Hospital, thanks to his 7 year confinement in one room with no access to medical attention. We say that he should be RELEASED forthwith, and allowed to recover fully from his illness and ordeal WITHOUT FURTHER HARASSMENT OR PERSECUTION.

ST MARVIN’S PARISH NEWS #20

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Opportunistic campaigners from that notorious hotbed of anti-semitism, the failing ‘Needs Improvement’ Dave Spart Academy run by racists and transphobes, have continued to generate a lot of unnecessary noise regarding the entirely essential and lawful sustainable remuneratory consideration I handed to Miss Klownowski from London when she resigned as Parish Secretary in 2017. As you all know, Miss Klonowski publicly explained she was doing the Christian thing and resigning to care for her tragically ill and dying parents and wasn’t involved in bullying anyone, anywhere, ever. The Christian community of St Marvin’s therefore should be celebrating Miss Klonownowki’s resilient selflessness and my administrative efficiency, not focussing on the minor material matter of money.

There’s a number of other things that the congregation needs to understand about this essential and lawful sustainable remuneratory consideration I handed to Miss Klownowski. Firstly, the whole issue is really boring. Miss Klonowski worked for the parish. Then one day she didn’t and we gave her a purely contractural payment to go away. This was all absolutely correct as has been confirmed by the high-level verbal legal advice acquired for me by our former interim Parish Committee member Miss McGeachie from Peterborough. You may recall Miss Klonowski personally appointed Miss McGeachie on a tax-efficient basis in 2017 to streamline the Parish Committee’s leadership function. Miss McGeachie sustainably delivered this streamline on target and to budget as well as enabling top-notch legal advice for me from someone in Wales whose name now escapes me.

The second consideration you therefore need to understand is that I was acting on sound legal advice. The fact that our former accountant, Mr Bdo, a foreigner from Vietnam, says in his weird and unnecessary report that this advice was wrong can safely be discounted as his firm has now been deservedly fired from St Marvin’s and replaced by Mr Grant Thornton, from a local accountancy firm on the High Street. Not only is Mr Thornton auditing our church’s accounts this year but he has also taken on some complex consultancy work at a very competitive rate to map an improvement journey for our church’s accounting practice. And Mr Thornton hasn’t produced any reports criticising me or anyone else in the parish leadership team. Proving beyond reasonable doubt that this whole issue is politically mischievous noise from opportunistic campaigners.

The final thing to understand is that Miss Klonowski’s remuneratory arrangements were nothing to do with me anyway. Miss McGeachie assisted by interim Parish Committee member, Miss Beardmore from Shropshire, navigated Miss Klownowski’s leadership exit journey back in 2017. So those saying the buck stops with me have clearly never operated a buck and have no idea where it should stop or, even, how to stop one. As my mentor, the Texan psychotic preacher and notorious anti-communist homophobe, the Pastor Righteous Loon says, “ask not where the buck stops for you but where you can stop the buck when confronted with trenchant criticism”.

Let’s now move on and focus on our resilient spiritual leadership journey together that binds us.

The Vicar