CAN’T PAY? YOU CAN’T PLAY!

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Do you remember when footie was a simple game? Four jumpers and a ball and children of all ages could enjoy a kickabout? Those days have gone, as the national game becomes a COMMODITY TO CONSUME supported by the Football Association and million pound companies pretending to educate children, like the Cabot Learning Federation.

The City Academy in East Bristol, recently RIPPED UP their astroturf to lay a state of the art 4G playing surface. The youth football teams that trained there were told to train elsewhere for a couple of months and return to a lovely playing surface to improve their skills.

Then the trouble started. The cowboys employed to do the work, ripped it all up, and then announced that the drainage was substandard and that would be ANOTHER £250K please. Remember that old chestnut? I do. My Nan was conned by a gang driving around, promising new tarmac paths and disappearing over the hill after they ripped them up. They came back, after their poor victims had been housebound for a couple of weeks, and DEMANDED MORE MONEY.

The only difference between these two sets of fucking spivs, is my Nan’s lot got nicked. The one’s that CONNED the Academy and the children of East Bristol, will probably get an OBE and BONUSES on their shares.

After much wrangling between the suits, a price was agreed and the pitch was laid. Hooray! The FA said on their website while celebrating the new pitch, that “by providing more high-quality facilities, coupled with coaching at the appropriate age group, the Premier League and The FA Facilities Fund aims to improve the experience for regular players as well as attracting new players to the game. Many of the new state-of-the-art facilities will serve to strengthen the connection between professional football clubs and their local communities, PARTICULARLY IN THE MOST DEPRIVED AREAS OF THE COUNTRY, through the professional clubs’ community trusts’ outreach work.”

What a load of bollox. Instead parents, players and coaches are now being told that they now have to FORK OUT for new boots to be able to use the state of the art pitch. This was never explained prior and these boots range from £40 upwards. The youth football teams star many children from single parent families, families on benefits and, even, refugees without access to benefits. They are told that they CANNOT WEAR astro trainers, or moulded boots. They must be Nikes or Adidas. Worse still, coaches are expected to turn away poor children, and some have.

Stories abound of crying kids being turned away. One parent told The BRISTOLIAN, “I have 3 boys, so that’s over £150, plus the kit, and the weekly subs. We have to go to foodbanks to make ends meet. That is the end of it for us.”

One coach close to The BRISTOLIAN said “I’m not spending my coaching time turning kids away. I do this to include, not exclude. My team is losing players, because they are poor.”

Is this the SOCIAL CLEANSING of our football? Will future World Cup squads just be made up of middle class kids, who can afford various boots? Why can’t players wear astro turf trainers on astro turf and then wear them to school as many do at present? SPORT SHOULD BE FOR ALL, not just the well to do. They have taken our swimming pools, libraries and now they’re after our football.

Enough now surely?

DAFT POLICY ON ROUGH SLEEPER ENCAMPMENTS

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The recent EVICTIONS of homeless people living in vans and caravans from Greenbank, Easton and an ENCAMPED PROTEST in July on the council’s doorstep on College Green has focused attention on BCC’s homelessness prevention and provision services. As well as its new draft policy proposal on van dwellers and rough sleeper encampments.

As The BRISTOLIAN recently highlighted, a private for profit company, Social Impact Bristol Ltd is to commodify and make a profit from homeless people through a SOCIAL IMPACT BOND.

So it may not entirely be a coincidence that the recently launched DRAFT POLICY ON ROUGH SLEEPER ENCAMPMENTS is proposing to wholly outsource homelessness provision to St Mungo’s. An organisation that is intimately involved with Social Impact Bristol Ltd. and will be paying interest to the ‘high net worth individuals’ that have invested in it.

Bristol is seeing increasing numbers of people BECOMING HOMELESS, with some taking control of their own living conditions by squatting, living in vans, caravans and tents and refusing to pay exorbitant rents to landlords.

Sadly far too many are falling through our social safety net and ending up on the streets. Against this backdrop, a policy proposal that would seem to originate from the DEPUTY MAYOR’S OFFICE seeks to coral all rough sleepers into a ‘pathway’ through St Mungos. Encampments, even if deemed “low impact” with no anti social behaviour complaints, are only going to be tolerated for a maximum of 3 months and then dwellers will be forced into a “pathway”.

Whilst Marvin has been jetting off to Asia to seek international finance at a Green Growth seminar, there are people who are living environmentally LOW IMPACT LIFESTYLES that are going to be directly affected by the Draft Policy proposal on Rough Sleeper Encampments. A policy headed by Tom Gilchrist, BCC Gypsy and Traveller Liaison Officer, who has publicly stated he “wants to see everyone in bricks and mortar”.

How does this draft policy proposal fit in with Marvin and Deputy Mayor Asher Craig’s public statements about inclusivity, sustainable living and other corporate drivel?

Many homeless people refuse to engage with St Mungo’s, citing reasons of chronic drug dealing, serious substance misuse issues, violence and theft within St Mungo’s hostels. St Mungo’s own outreach workers state that they don’t have the capacity to deal with the number of homeless people, and admit that St Mungo’s hostels are DANGEROUS AND UNSAFE for those that do use them.

We ask why would a draft policy proposal that comes under the remit of the Deputy Mayor be calling for all homeless people to be CORRALLED into St Mungo’s when St Mungo’s doesn’t have the capacity or the safe conditions to properly assist some of the most vulnerable people in our city?

It wouldn’t have anything to do with providing a financial investment return to those high net worth individuals that have invested in Social Investment Bristol Ltd would it?

HEAD BOY JUMPS SINKING SHIP

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As the debt owed to council tax payers by the city council’s useless energy reselling business, BRISTOL ENERGY, tops £30 million, the stench of CRISIS at the firm settles like an early morning carcinogenic dust cloud over Avonmouth. Not least because of a wonky merry-go-round of directors bouncing in and out of the company on A MONTHLY BASIS.

In May, we reported that the Reverend’s personally appointed £1,500 a day regeneration chief, Colin “HEAD BOY” Molton had been given the nod to join Bristol Energy’s board. What exactly does moneypants Molton know about the energy reselling business, we mused at the time and the answer appears to be, er … fuck all!

As Molton RESIGNED at the end of July having served all of five months on the board and helped wave through a further council tax payer cash injection into the firm of £7 MILLION. Is this a rat leaving a sinking ship?

Following Molton out of the door, a month later in August, was the firm’s Director of Finance, LAURA FLOWERDEW. Did she jump or was she pushed? Who knows? Any information on the company we fund is cloaked in ABSOLUTE SECRECY. However, we do know she’s been replaced by an Interim Finance Director, consultant Marek “MAGIC” Majewicz. Perhaps he can make a £30 million debt to the council taxpayer disappear?

Joining Magic Majewicz on the board of the sinking ship in August was St George Labour Councillor Steve “WALLFLOWER” Pearce. A typical loud-mouth Labour Party bully with no discernible talent for anything and zero business experience.

Is Pearce the Reverend’s useful idiot who will be left at the table grinning like a fool when the whole thing finally crashes and burns?

ST MARVIN’S PARISH NEWS #16

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Some of you, no doubt encouraged by silly elements on the Parish Committee, led by Ms Townsend and other troublemakers from the parish’s failing school, the Dave Spart Academy, have been querying how parish leadership is now enabled. Let me explain.

Firstly, Mr Slocombe, who’s delivered excellence in shared resilience practice over two years as the parish’s creative communications specialist, is now known as Head of Vicar’s Office where he will aim to mature the church into an enabling organisation. To reflect his new importance I’ve awarded Mr Slocombe a pay rise in excess of 100 per cent.

Those of you who know Mr Slocombe will see perfect sense in all this. While those of you who don’t and are asking “what skills does Mr Slocombe bring to a senior parish role?” should reflect on our common purpose a little more. A career producing lots of dull press releases for striking postmen is the perfect training for life at St Marvin’s and Mr Slocombe brings with him lots of transferable skills. Please give him your unconditional support as both the Lord and I do.

As most of you are now aware, Mr Jackson from Weston-Super-Mare has finally arrived in post to replace our former parish administrator, Ms Klonowski from London. The post has been rebranded by Mr Slocombe as ‘Head of Administrative Services’ and Mr Slocombe tells me, “Jackson is a jumped up office boy. All decisions go through me.”

Some of you also have been asking how I have empowered Mr Alexander from Sea Mills? Mr Alexander, a well-known and popular parish figure, found every Sunday loudly cheering and applauding my sermons from the front row of the congregation, has agreed to become my freelance evangelical enforcer on a voluntary basis.

So three cheers for Mr Alexander and his solutions focused approach. His assistance at a recent meeting on church waste disposal hosted by our rubbish Parish Committee member, Mr Dudd was highly appreciated. If Mr Alexander hadn’t aggressively told that single mum from the Dave Spart Estate at the wrong end of the parish to “sit down and shut up” when she started asking questions about waste disposal, I’m assured the meeting may have outcomed sub-optimally.

Those of you, encouraged by Ms Townsend, accusing Mr Alexander of bullying and misogyny are wide of the mark. As my mentor, the Texan psychotic preacher and notorious anti-communist homophobe, the Pastor Righteous Loon says, “a woman’s place is on a sun lounger by my pool in a skimpy bikini.”

Finally, can I ask that you say a little prayer for Mr Browne, the hardworking chairman of governors at the parish’s high-achieving St Snoot-the-Privileged Selective Religious Academy? Mr Brown’s experiencing a difficult time presently after accidentally providing a character reference in court for convicted sex offender, Mr Perry, the former Head at St Snoot’s and, in a separate incident, he is being threatened with financial ruin because someone, probably from the Dave Spart Academy, is threatening to sue him!

The Vicar

TRUE BRISTOL STORIES #1

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Scene: Labour Party canvasser out campaigning (LPC) meets troublemaking constituent on pushbike (TCP)

TCP: Hey, are you canvassing?
LPC: Yes, I’m with the Labour Party.
TCP: What’s your constituency?
LPC: Thangam Debbonaire. This street marks the boundary between her constituency, Bristol West, and Bristol North, represented by Darr—
TCP: Dipshit Daz?
LPC: Ahem. I must get back to my canvassing.
TCP: So, how’s the deselection process getting along in Bristol West?
LPC: Good god! Of whom?
TCP: Thangam Debbonaire of course.
LPC: But why on earth would we want to deselect our MP?
TCP: Because she’s fucking useless, and she’s really right wing. Also a traitor to your party leader on three separate occasions to date, and counting.
LPC: That’s not what 37000 people in Bristol West think. 37000 people voted for her in the last election. That’s an amazing achievement.
TCP: No, they voted for the Corbyn agenda, not her. I hear there’s been moves to get her deselected, and one very nearly succeeded. I wanted to find out how it’s progressing.
LPC: Where did you hear that? Are you a member of Bristol West LP?
TCP: No, I live in Bristol North nowadays.
LPC: Well, there you have the excellent—
TCP: Dipshit Daz? He’s even worse than Thangam Debbonaire. All that bogus ‘anti-semitic’ witch hunt claptrap he signed up to just for a start.
LPC: Ahem. I must get back to—
TCP: Hey, it’s common knowledge how unpopular Thangam is with the branch party. Come on, you must know what’s going on. Spill the beans.
LPC: There’s no infighting in the Labour Party. I don’t know where you heard that. We’re all moving forward together, campaigning to make sure Bristol remains a Labour city.
TCP: Don’t make me laugh. You know full well what’s going on in your party.
LPC: Are you a member of the Labour Party at all?
TCP: No, I’m an independent communist.
LPC: Oh. Goodbye then.
TCP: Goodbye? We’ve only just started a political discussion. Are you canvassing or what?
LPC: Must be moving on. Good luck to you.
TCP: And good luck to you too. With an attitude like that to politically informed voters who ask questions, you’re going to fucking need it.

SCORE AT HALF TIME:

TROUBLEMAKING CONSTITUENT 12, LABOUR PARTY CANVASSER 0

Rotten Comrades: “Values and Behaviours”

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Endeavouring to compete with other paragons of corporate responsibility, Bristol City Council now has a corporate philosophy and it calls it ‘Values and Behaviours’. Plastering them all over the inside of City Hall in ten foot high letters, the mayor is hoping some of it will rub off on his staff.

So what have we got? Do these values and behaviours reflect the council’s values or are they aspirations as to how council officers should behave? Well, if it was based on actual management behaviours we would expect back-stabbiness, passive aggression, brown-nosing and cronyism to be high up there in behaviours. Thankfully, the council has chosen aspirations instead.

Instead, we have ‘respect’, ‘dedicated’, ‘collaborative’ and various other reasonable aspirations and their sub-headings. Nobody could argue with any of them.

So what does this mean for the “scores” of workers who recently had their pay calculated incorrectly? This problem was identified a few months ago but still the shortfall has not been paid. The longer it takes, the less time will be available for a class-action claim.

No doubt this is the reason for the delay – perhaps management are hoping the staff affected run out of time to sue? Or perhaps management are hoping for a cheaper settlement and a few non-disclosure agreements? Is this what Marvin meant when he said ‘we are collaborative; we come together to reach shared goals’?

What does this mean for M, who as a caretaker in a residential tower block, raised safety concerns and was immediately moved to another building. How does this behaviour fit into the post-Grenfell Tower world? Victimisation? Or is this ‘ownership’ where we ‘accept personal accountability’?

Or what about R who was stood outside Temple Street having a crafty fag when Work-Place Support phoned the litter police, who promptly slapped a fine on him. All his own fault, perhaps, or was it the petty act of a spiteful, vindictive arm of management?

As Marvin says, ‘we show respect; we treat each other fairly.’

MONSTER MAYOR?

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News that fully paid-up middle class prat and voluntary sector luvvie, Sandy “FRANKENSTEIN” Bufton-Tufton (surely Hore-Ruthven? ed.), will be Green candidate for mayor in 2020 moves the campaign for the next elected mayor of Bristol up a small notch.

Over the last few years Bufton-Tufton has carved himself out a career as a MINOR ESTABLISHMENT FIGURE of little consequence as the Chief Executive of the Creative Youth Network, the money swallowing youth project based at the Station in Broadmead, and as the Chair of Voscur, Bristol’s underperforming voluntary and community sector umbrella group.

In fact, Bufton-Tufton looks like another half-educated, snooty middle class white male CARPETBAGGER prone to jumping on the nearest party political bandwagon to achieve his unrealistic leadership ambitions that the Greens tend to favour. Remember Darren “Bugger” Hall, the Greens’ great white hope for MP for Bristol West? Whatever happened to him and his commitment to the city once a Parliamentary seat FAILED TO MATERIALISE?

More worrying for us, the long suffering electorate, is that Bufton-Tufton could turn out to be a TERRIFYING MIX of the worst of Mayor-No-More George and the Reverend Rees. For we understand that Bufton-Tufton’s current squeeze is none other than Zoe “Groupie” Sear, the HORRIFYING SNOB that played at PR and political advisor for Mayor No-More Ferguson. What a small world Bristol is!

In 2013, Ms Sear, then earning the best part of a grand a week from the council as George’s sidekick, worked with senior council housing bosses to try to force a victim of domestic violence The BRISTOLIAN was supporting into a refuge AGAINST HER WILL. When the woman refused to budge, “your name could be slipped to the mainstream press!” hissed Sear down the phone to this victim of serious violence.

What role Ms Sear will be playing in Bufton-Tufton’s hapless Green Party campaign against anyone who dares to drive a car in Bristol is not yet clear. But let’s hope it doesn’t involve advising on DOMESTIC VIOLENCE or letting her anywhere near “THE MAINSTREAM PRESS“. In fact, it might be best if Bufton Tufton leaves Zoe at home to wait for the Ocado delivery when he goes out to campaign. Otherwise we might start confusing him with George.

We also learn that Bufton-Tufton, just like the Reverend, is a fully paid up member of Common Purpose, a virulently pro-EU, pro-free market “LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT PROGRAMME“, generally aimed at public sector middle managers of limited intelligence.

The organisation has members scattered across local government and the voluntary sector in Bristol and, as far as we can see, its main common purpose is for its members to promote each other into jobs and positions of power that they’re not very good at. They then get on with their core task of selling off public services and assets to corporate contacts as cheap and fast as possible while endlessly repeating the buzzwords “INCLUSION“, “DIVERSITY“, “INCLUSIVE GROWTH” and “SUSTAINABLE“.

Despite his bizarre RIGHT WING LEADERSHIP TRAINING, Bufton-Tufton’s personal leadership skills may still leave a bit to be desired. This glorious new city leader stood up the Extraordinary Full Council Meeting on 3 September to CONDEMN the Reverend for cancelling the arena at Arena Island. Only for the Reverend, an hour later at the same meeting, to announce that Voscur SUPPORTED his plan to cancel the arena at Arena Island. Bufton-Tufton is, of course, chair of Voscur and responsible for their corporate policies.

Isn’t it good to see Bufton-Tufton’s mastered the Marvin-like political art of badly selling two entirely opposing views to the people simultaneously? He may go far in Bristol ..

George ‘Kidd’ Mahoney ‘spontaneous’ commemoration at Wick House

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My name is Catherine Doherty and I am the Mother of George ‘Kidd’ Mahoney who died at Wick House on 29^th November 2016.

I am having a ‘spontaneous’ event outside of Wick House at 2 pm tomorrow. We will be attempting to put up two plaques on the perimeter wall to commemorate George and Paul Way (who died there last October). Paul was left undiscovered for 3 days. George’s two young sons will be trying to put the plaque for him up.

The BBC will be there and hopefully enough people to make it newsworthy.

We will be wearing Marvin masks and also Paul Wolfie Smith masks.

I do not have permission to have this event and I don’t care. If you can make a link between the Zamparelli family and Wick House that will stick that would be a result. If you can make a link between the money they make and their pampered son Dino Zamperelli, the famous Bristol Formula 3 driver even better. The difference between the life their son has and the lives of the sons in Wick House is stark.

I have just set up a petition on Change.org to try and get the shit hole shut down.

Let me know if you are interested.

Keep up the good work.

STAND UP TO MENCAP!

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Protest for care workers to keep the minimum wage!

Saturday October 27 12.00 – 4.00pm, College Green

All welcome.

Hello comrades!

We are Bristol Care Workers Network. We an autonomous collective of healthcare and social care workers. We are contacting other organisations in Bristol to ask for help.

The charity Mencap have gone to court to demand that the government overturns it’s recent ruling on sleeping shifts counting as work for the purposes of calculating workers’ entitlement to the minimum wage. Because of Mencap, millions of low-paid workers will now be denied the minimum wage for their sleep shifts.

This has come at a time when non-payment of the minimum wage is at it’s worst ever level. The care sector is already one of the worst affected. Even for workers who are paid legally, studies have shown that it is almost impossible to make a living on the minimum wage. And now, Mencap want to make it even harder for workers to get the minimum wage.

The social care sector is a precarious sector where workers are routinely denied their rights and where union presence is very low. Although the situation for care workers is dire, this makes it an ideal sector for grassroots organising. We’ve found our campaigns around home care workers pay to be very successful and popular, and we’ve generated a lot of support by fighting this issue.

Precarious workers in other sectors are getting organised in an unprecedented way recently but at the moment the care sector has not caught up with what’s been happening among couriers, hospitality workers and other precarious sectors of the economy. The law around home care is changing rapidly and the TUC unions can’t keep up, so there is a real need for grassroots and DIY organising in the care sector. The home care sector is reaching crisis point due to austerity and Brexit will make this worse, so now is the time to start focusing on this sector. This is also an intersectional issue, as home care workers are overwhelmingly women, and a high proportion of care workers are people of colour and/or migrants, so as well as being an issue of class struggle, this is also a feminist issue and an anti-racist issue. This is why we think it’s important to start fighting this.

We are a small organisation with limited capacity and influence, so we need other organisations to help make this event a success. You can help us by attending on the day, bringing your banners, and making a lot of noise, and/or publicising and sharing our event on your social media.

Thanks,

BCWN

Useful links:

BCWN website: bristolcareworkersnetwork.org

Stand up to Mencap event: https://www.facebook.com/events/1974568829267337/

BCWN’s critique of Unison and the TUC, and our arguments for grassroots organising in the care sector: https://bristolcareworkersnetwork.org/2018/08/26/unison-social-care-seminar-report-and-actions-the-workers-respond/

Background info on the Mencap court case: https://www.unison.org.uk/news/press-release/2018/07/sleep-shifts-judgment-huge-mistake/

Article about non-payment of NMW: https://www.bbc.com/news/business-45608993

CITY COUNCIL BRIDE STILL ENGAGED TO SLUM LANDLORD CAMELOT

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The wedding’s not off yet! Despite having had a lovers’ tiff with SCAMALOT in 2017 following The BRISTOLIAN’S exposure of their secret affair in 2013. And despite a seminal court ruling that effectively gave Camelot ‘licensees’ the rights of tenants. And despite PAUL ‘WOLFIE’ SMITH’s promise to terminate all Bristol City Council contracts with Property Guardian Companies Camelot and Ad-Hoc forthwith, The BRISTOLIAN can reveal, that Camelot are STILL enjoying the favours of BCC’s Portfolio Management team as we go to press, WELL OVER EIGHTEEN MONTHS ON.

A pair of activists made this discovery about six weeks ago when they paid a visit to one ‘former’ Camelot-run/BCC owned property. And ran into a group of residents with all their belongings being unceremoniously piled into cars or taxis, ably assisted by Camelot employee STEVE ‘NEO-NAZI’* PERKINS, or ‘THE EXECUTIONER’ – as he’s also known. Unable to speak to the evicted residents because of Perkins’ intervention, the activists did not find out what was going on until later, when sheer chance provided a thread they could follow.

What they discovered was that when they had showed up, everyone was in fact being evicted ILLEGALLY… by force, while a BCC-registered dispute over tenancy rights was in progress at the said property.

Despite this, the residents were relocated to YET ANOTHER BCC PROPERTY and dumped into sub-standard living quarters, where conditions are EVEN WORSE than they had been at their former home. Not only that, but at least one resident did not even give permission for this violation and had their personal belongings removed (with damage/loss) to the new address, while they were out of the building.

So THE LAW BE DAMNED, because with Nazi-employing Scamalot and its quisling BCC housing managers, it’s business as usual! I wonder if it’s the same story at those BCC properties run by Ad-Hoc? Hmm, perhaps we should investigate.

* We stand by this accusation, Steve, because we hacked into your ‘restricted access’ Facebook page and followed its ultra-right/white supremacist links, you fascist thug!