Monthly Archives: November 2015

SLAVERY PROTEST SPUN BY COLSTON’S SCHOOL AND MEDIA

Headteacher Alistair “Snooty” Perry from COLSTON GIRLS SCHOOL recently created a media storm after sending a letter to parents suggesting that pupils had been “approached by strangers in a forthright manner.

He went on to say that his school would be “reviewing our policies for student movement around the local area, including Year 11 leaving the school at lunchtime” after a protest at the annual ‘celebrations’ for slave-trader EDWARD COLSTON on 7 November at BRISTOL CATHEDRAL.

Since then the national and local media – led by the idle Guardian scribbler STEVEN MORRIS who appeared to phone in some South West News Service copy to head office – have spun the story with claims that:

  • ‘Protesters target girls’ and ‘accost’ them in the street (The Times)
  • ‘Schoolgirls are being warned about wearing their uniforms in public’ (The Daily Mail, The Sun)
  • ‘Campaigners have also mounted demonstrations outside the school’ (Nazi Post)

All are far from the truth and there’s been no response from Colston School who began the whole affair with a ridiculous scaremongering letter to parents suggesting that their children were in danger.

The protestors have pointed out in a statement that the leafleting outside the Cathedral was in response to last year’s ‘celebrations’ of slave-trader Colston. When the  BISHOP OF BRISTOL claimed that Colston had ‘lived a life of significance’ [and there] ‘may be still some SPECULATION on some of the circumstances around his business roots right here’.

Speculation? The educational leaflets given out by protestors simply told the history of Colston after BISHOP BONKERS had failed to tell the whole truth to school children forced to attend the ‘celebration’ the previous year.

Here is the statement from the protestors:

PROTEST OUTSIDE BRISTOL CATHEDRAL AT COLSTON COMMEMORATIONS INSIDE THE CATHEDRAL

Several newspapers published articles on 17 November about children from a Colston school in Bristol, being accosted. This may relate to events 10 days earlier, where there was a public protest outside Bristol Cathedral on 7 November, aimed at the Colston commemorations going on inside the cathedral.

We refute strongly that children were accosted on 7 November. We believe the school have overreacted to events of 7 November 2015 by unduly alarming parents and children and being economical with the truth. Inside the Cathedral, whilst preparations were being undertaken to mark Colston’s Founder’s Day attended by Colston girls school, we were protesting outside.

At the time of my arrival there were 6 of us. Our protest entailed distributing leaflets headed:  ‘WHY WE ARE PROTESTING OUTSIDE TODAY’ that explained our presence, one of us holding a lighted candle. Our presence and activities were always in a visible public space with staff present.

Shortly, another 6 joined us. Among us: a retired teacher, a security guard, a historian, a grandparent who had dropped off a child to the ceremony, a teacher, three artists, a mother with a toddler in a buggy and a former student of Colston Girls. We are representative of the Bristol population whom the children live among.

We believe the teachers only panicked because they did not have a risk assessment in place that anticipated protest. Had the staff that were present with the children read the leaflets (here), that they were so quick to take off the children, they would have realised, it was the Merchant Venturer’s commemoration of Charter day and the Bishop’s comments in the Cathedral in 2014 that brought us as individuals to protest outside the Cathedral.

We found students bright, attentive and curious. Many were entering the Cathedral with little understanding of who Colston was or indeed why they were there. Others were keen to learn more and asked for leaflets.

Education takes place everywhere. We were not outside any school or in the street harassing children. Our aim was to protest at a ceremony in a significant religious and spiritual place of worship, ‘celebrating’ a controversial historical figure without acknowledging his direct involvement in the propagation of slavery and his amassed wealth from slave trading activities.

Neither did the ceremony seek to honour the memory and suffering of Africans and others exploited by the slave trade, creating memorialisation dissent in the Bristol community. This is what we are seeking to publicly highlight and change.

Why is this controversial?

The spreading of panic and fear in children and parents through the media glosses over public dissent and smothers the truth.

We are open to meeting with the Colston’s School, the Bishop and the Cathedral for discussion on a way forward.

FLY SWOT SWOTTED

The hugely entertaining ‘FLY’ protest by activists in Avonmouth at their Make Sunday Special event on September 13 managed to enrage someone other than lying MAYOR THINSKIN, the object of the protest.

A bizarre report of the protest cobbled together by the Nazi Post from film footage nicked off the internet even reported the mayor apparently hallucinating as he claimed “THE PROTESTER HAD FOLLOWED HIM AROUND WITH A PIG’S HEAD“.

Most people found the sight of this protestor dressed as a fly, with no pig’s head in sight, a cause of hilarity as he followed Mayor Boomeco around his UNINSPIRED EVENT.

However, one resident took a dimmer view of the mayor being harangued about everything from why his DAUGHTER’S CRAP CHARITY was getting so much cash off his council to the OPEN CORRUPTION in his environmental health department.

Appearing under the Post’s largely fictitious story of the protest came a comment by ‘FLY SWOT‘. He claimed the protestors “Happen to be bigger pests in the community than the flies”! He also called them “a band of three vile people” and accused them of “continually victimis[ing] individuals for trying to make positive changes in the area”.

Coincidentally, the same three people happen to be leading a class legal action involving over 200 residents against the criminal polluting firm Boomeco who created a fly infestation in Avonmouth in 2014.

And unfortunately for ‘Fly Swot’, who’s possibly not the sharpest knife in the drawer, his Nazi Post user account reveals his real name is IAN SMITH.

Surely this is not the same Ian Smith of Avonmouth who runs the unicorporated association, ‘Project Avonmouth’. And surely this isn’t the same Ian Smith who received £1,000 from the criminal polluters Boomeco into his PRIVATE BANK ACCOUNT last year  for the use of the community, which has now DISAPPEARED without any explanation from Smith?

Indeed, it is one and the same Ian Smith. Perhaps someone as equally community-minded as Mr Smith should contact the coppers and get them to ask him what he’s done with his community’s money?

NEW SCHOOL’S ROAD HELL

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The other side of the street: Mayor Cock-Up and friends opening Ashton Gate Primary

Much disquiet in Mayor Me-First’s SOUTHVILLE BACKYARD following the botched expansion of Ashton Gate Primary School into the old Imperial Tobacco offices on Upton Road.

Ashton Gate Primary School has now DOUBLED in size from a two-form intake to a four-form intake because of a population explosion in the leafy South Bristol suburb and the Upton Road site will eventually hold 480 children.

The original planning application proposed closing Upton Road as the school’s playground is on the OTHER SIDE OF THE ROAD from the classrooms but this has not happened.

Instead, the council responded to objections from a few residents and people who use Upton road as an overflow car park by agreeing to leave the road OPEN to all traffic and promised to install some traffic calming measures instead.

The final planning decision states that the main reason for leaving Upton Road open to traffic was because of the loss of parking spaces and the fact that Upton Road is used as a diversion route when events are held at – wait for it … Mayor Self Serving’s TOBACCO FACTORY!

Some so-called traffic calming measures have been put in place although many parents are describing them as “PATHETIC“. One told us, “The ‘speed tables’ at either end of Upton road wouldn’t slow down a mobility scooter”!

Worse, there are no signs to warn drivers that a school is ahead and people driving past or through Upton Road are very confused indeed when they see HUNDREDS OF CHILDREN AND PARENTS flocking to an office block at 8.40am.

Neither have any crossing patrols been provided at either end of Upton Road nor yellow zig-zags have been kept to a MINIMUM in order to maximise the number of PARKING SPACES on the road.

Double yellow lines were still being painted onto the road on the Monday afternoon after the school had opened for the new term and the traffic calming measures appear to have been installed by a fly-by-night contractors as they resemble a “TARMAC TOUPEE“.

It has also become apparent that the classrooms at the front of the school cannot have any windows open because of TRAFFIC NOISE, which suggests it’s not a healthy site for a school unless the road is closed during school hours.

It’s also IMPOSSIBLE for any children to walk to school unaccompanied, which has always been seen as useful for year 6 children preparing to go to secondary school.

It’s blatantly obvious that the council have decided to prioritise pay parking meters for RPZ and supporting events at the Tobacco Factory above the safety of the children of Southville.

It’s not good enough. The Council must urgently agree to close Upton Road at least during school hours before there’s an accident…

THAT GEORGE FERGUSON ‘STATE OF THE CITY’ SPEECH IN FULL…

In 50 years time it will be 2065 … How will we get there? … I suggest by Bus (reference sponsored by First Bus) … Or if you want to go only half way take my MetroWest Suburban Rail … Digital thingies … in an aquarium (surely planetarium, ed) … Ducts underground for other digital thingies … er, data … experiment thingies, er … Coding! … Children should do coding in schools … in clubs … when I can afford it … Can you lend us a tenner, guv? … Children … We are the world, we are the children … We are the ones who make a brighter day, so let’s start giving … to sensible sustainable projects run by my friends and family obviously … don’t give to the poor, obs … leave all that to my housing boss Nick Hooper, he’s arranging legal measures to get the homeless off the streets of Bristol West as I speak … Then in 50 years time we’ll all be equal … Isn’t housing a good thing? … But there wasn’t any … there isn’t any …. and their won’t be any … But i will take the time to chair a committee about it … And might get around to amending a strategy if Mr Hooper writes it … Does anyone know Kevin McCloud? … Er, have I mentioned children?  … How about babies? … And trees … Aren’t they good? … European Green Capital … Barcelona … Bristol … Berlin … Barcelona … What’s that other place in Spain with the a big concert hall? … There … The future isn’t it great? … 50 years time … Do you want to buy a brewery?

Blah, blah, blah (ad infinitum)

COLSTON AND SLAVERY STILL OBSCURED?

On Friday 7 November a group of Bristolian activists leafleted people and children entering the Colston Schools Commemoration Day at Bristol Cathedral.

This protest came about because of a discussion at a Black History month event in St Pauls a few days before. The two leaflets below were handed out. The first for pupils and the second one for adults.

They have proved more controversial and provoked more of a reaction than the protestors could possibly have imagined:

WHY WE ARE PROTESTING OUTSIDE TODAY

We are Bristol residents concerned about the Colston founder day/charter day ceremonies about to take place in the city’s cathedral today and next week, following the public of words spoken by the Bishop in last year’s ceremony. In 2014 he stated that Edward Colston had: ‘lived a life of significance’ [and there] ‘may be still some speculation on some of the circumstances around his business roots right here’

It is not speculation but fact that the bulk of the money Colston gave away ‘for charitable purposes’, which built two of your schools, was generated off the backs of African slaves working in sugar plantations. Is this charity?

The memory of Africans (mere commodities under slavery) forcibly removed from their West African homelands, branded, their names taken from them, working under the sun, the slave driver lash at their backs, should be remembered, whenever the name Colston is mentioned.

Colston used his money to court influence and power in the city andParliament. He lends money to the Bristol City Corporation (city council) one year and becomes a member of the society of the Merchant Venturers the next…..

Ceremonies held in a cathedral, private or otherwise, presided over by the Bishop of Bristol, with hundreds of Bristol children in attendance, where the Bishop chooses to speculate over this fact and not give dignity to the memory of African ancestors who were dehumanised, are perverse.

We are using our presence to provide balance in education. Use the central library next door and the internet to find out the truth about:

 Edward Colston and other Bristol slave traders

 The Merchant Venturers

 The slave and sugar trade in Bristol

 Slave rebellions in America and the Caribbean

 The movement for the abolition of slavery

 Talk to your parents and teachers at school

 

COLSTON AND SLAVERY STILL OBSCURED?

At last year’s Merchant Venturers Charter Day service at the cathedral the Bishop of Bristol, stated that Edward Colston had:

‘lived a life of significance’ [and there] ‘may be still some speculation on some of the circumstances around his business roots right here’

The Bishop of Bristol’s clumsy attempt to rewrite history, effectively claiming that Colston’s involvement in the business of the slave trade was ‘speculation’ is unsurprising. A similar kind of air brushing occurred during a BBC televised debate in 2007 (the 200th anniversary of the abolition of the slave trade) when a spokesperson for the Merchant Venturers, claimed that his organisation had not traded in slave-produced commodities! This produced a mixture of laughter and howls of derision from the assembled historians in the studio audience.

This is nothing new. Colston’s extensive political and financial involvement in promoting slavery and the trade in human cargo has been obscured by the Merchant Venturers and their devotees for centuries. It took until the 1920s before his dealings in the ‘vile trade’ first began to be exposed. The problem for the Merchant Venturers and their ilk is simply this: if you set up one of your beneficent members as the ‘father of Bristol’, bang up statues1 and name streets and buildings after him; then the truth becomes politically inconvenient.

So what are the myths and what is the truth about Edward Colston?

 Colston was held up in the Victorian period as an example of ‘a self-made man’. This was far from true. Privately educated Colston was born into a wealthy merchant family in Bristol who were already embedded in the Merchant Venturers by the time he was born in 1636.

 In 1680 the profit-chasing Colston followed a number of his family into the Royal African Company (RAC), the premier slaving organisation in the British Empire. During the heyday of the RAC from 1672 to 1698 the organisation had a complete monopoly over the trade in human cargo from West Africa. Colston rose rapidly to the board of the company in this period becoming its deputy governor in 1689.

 Between 1672 and 1689, Colston’s company transported around 100,000 enslaved Africans to plantations in the West Indies and America. This included women and children as young as six – each slave was branded with company’s initials, RAC, on their chest. To maximise profit, Colston’s ships divided their hulls into holds with little headroom, so they could transport as many slaves as possible. Unhygienic conditions, dehydration, dysentery and scurvy killed more than 20,000 slaves during the crossings. Their bodies were thrown overboard.

 During this period Colston secretly accrued immense wealth which he then multiplied again by acting as a money lender. The bulk of this fortune, originally obtained from the exploitation of forced labour, became his passport to civic and political power in Bristol.

 Colston is often portrayed as a Christ-like figure giving without prejudice to the ‘poor’ of Bristol. In fact he was a Christian fundamentalist who hated Catholics and non-conformists; in fact anyone who wasn’t part of the High Anglican church. For Colston, only the ‘right-kind’ of poor and orphans were due his charity and even then they had to be physically and ideologically disciplined into strict religious observance before they would be allowed to ‘kiss the benefactors hand’.

 Colston was an old-school Tory loyalist who believed in the divine right of kings, despised Whigs and fought tooth and nail against ‘dangerous’ ideas such as ‘democracy’ and ‘enfranchisement’.
History is full of profiteers, gangsters and exploiters who toss ill-gotten wealth from the high table downwards in order to appease their own egos or to gain civic pride and status. Colston fits neatly into a long line of British slavers, colonial warlords and drug dealers that profited from the misery of colonisation and forced labour, whilst building respectable identities through philanthropy in the ‘mother country’.

The question is: For how much longer are school children expected to commemorate Colston in the city’s cathedral whilst conveniently disregarding the memory of enslaved Africans whose lives were brutalised and cheapened by the trade in human cargo? The Bishop of Bristol needs to inform school children of the truth, to restore humanity dignity to the memory of those whose lives were commodified. After all it is he that presides over these commemorations. The ball is in his court…….

(BRHG, 05-11-2015)

PDFs:

colston leaflet_adults

colston leaflet_pupils

HOLMWOOD HOUSE: CARE QUALITY COMMISSION TOOTHLESS

holwod hosueThe CQC is supposedly the independent regulator for inspecting health and social care settings so that the vulnerable remain safe from harm and exploitation in care homes and the like.

They became famous in the wake of the WINTERBOURNE VIEW home scandal, where animals masquerading as human care workers routinely abused adults with learning difficulties.  The situation was highlighted by BBC’s PANORAMA using a hidden camera.  The CQC came later.

When Bristol City Council closed all their residential care homes for the elderly in 2013 due to cuts, they promised that the existing residents would be transferred to safe care settings.

“Don’t worry,” they said,” the CQC will INSPECT AND CLOSE any homes that do not reach tough standards.”

What a load of bollox. As the BRISTOLIAN’s investigation of Holmwood House has revealed, the home has failed every inspection for the last five years, killed a resident and is now subject to legal action but it’s still open for business!

The CQC web site says that there are currently 77 settings classed as ‘INADEQUATE’ and 316 ‘NEEDING IMPROVEMENT’.  Which is just funky unless it’s your nan lying all day in her own urine, hoping that somebody will turn her over to ease the bed sores.  Why don’t they shut these homes?

The answer is LACK OF PROVISION. Councils have been forced to shut all their homes. So if inspectors suggest closure, the money grabbing care home bosses  supported by council bosses  say, “OK. Fine. But where are you going to put the residents?”

Look at Holmwood House with over 100 residents, many placed there by Bristol City Council. The truth is that dodgy care home bosses have FREE REIN to rake in money by paying care workers a pittance in under staffed settings while the vulnerable suffer and in some cases die.

This comes after the elderly have paid their national insurance all their lives and, sometimes, have had to sell their homes to pay for their abuse.

And it will continue because nobody cares unless you start caring.

SWANKY OFFICE WATCH

George buys 100 Temple Street for a bargain £18 million

The current multi-million pound refurbishment of the Counts Louse will include the THIRD refurbishment of the building’s third floor management suite for profligate twats on six-figure salaries in SIX YEARS!

In 2009 former Chief Exec JAN ORMONDROYD spent a six figure sum refurbishing her office suite in the regal style with purple carpeting, bullet proof glass and the legendary strategic leadership fridge.

Then last year, new Chief Exec Nicola “LADY GAGA” Yates spent a load of money on furniture and IT kit to stamp her personal style on the third floor. Indeed, she even threw a tantrum and fired the council’s Workplace Programme Manager, GRAHAM SKINNER when her new furniture didn’t arrive on time and thus putting a £60m project into chaos!

Now, in this age of austerity, more money is being spent refurbing the management suite all over again! This time to create an ‘AGILE WORKSPACE‘ we’re told.

Let’s just hope when we get a new mayor next year they like the results or, no doubt, we’ll be forking out another six figure sum for new carpets, soft furnishings and an a la mode mayoral cappuccino machine!

LOSERS FOR GEORGE #2: DOING THE BUSINESS?

abdul_1Mayor George is certainly racking up support among the city’s FAILED POLITICIANS. Joining the Greens’ Darren “BUGGER” Hall in supporting Mayor Crap for another term in 2016 is Lib Dem Abdul “Wannabe” Malik.

Malik was briefly a councillor in Easton 2005 – 2009 when he lobbied hard and FAILED to get nominated for the post of Lord Mayor. He then went on to LOSE a number of council elections in Easton before LOSING AGAIN in this year’s general election in Bristol East.

Malik has told the NAZI POST and Ferguson’s in-house website BRISTOL 24/7 (twice!), “as a businessman, I can see firsthand the benefits that the Mayor is bringing to Bristol.”

Well, it’s certainly nice to hear that wealthy local businessmen are benefiting from Mayor Backhanders’ regime even if disabled children in need of respite care aren’t.

The Lib Dems are now in the process of throwing this disloyal twat out of their party we understand.

LOSERS FOR GEORGE #1: HALL OR NOTHING

darren prat

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Darren “Bugger” Hall, the Green’s ECO-LOONEY candidate for Bristol West at the last general election, continues to impress.

The nakedly ambitious Southville-based enviro-thickie with the overblown ego is supposed to be the Green party’s national home affairs spokesman. But now he’s decided he’s backing MAYOR BACKSCRATCH, not his Green Party, in next year’s mayoral election!

Or, at least, that’s what he told the Nazi Post’s political smear merchant, Ian “SMELLY” Onions via a mystery press release. Bugger Hall told the sleazeball, “I want to accelerate our progress to a low carbon economy in 2020 and see the Green Party WORKING WITH THE MAYOR to make Bristol the city we know it can be.”

Although Hall did go on to say, “I am a Green Party supporter and member, and IN THE LONG TERM I’d like to see a Green Mayor running Bristol.”

When might that ‘LONG TERM’ be then Darren? 2020 by any chance? When Hall could bravely and unselfishly step forward as the Green candidate with the full support of his mate, outgoing Mayor Backscratch, as the continuity candidate?

Following the publication of his self-serving, me-first, fuck-you announcement and a subsequent and wholly predictable outcry from his party, Bugger Hall was desperately REVERSING THE FERRET and firing off an urgent “clarification” to the Post.

“The Green Party will be standing a candidate for Mayor of Bristol. If I were voting in Bristol next May, it is that candidate who would receive my first preference vote,” blustered the fool. Before going on to explain he would be helping ‘make Bristol the city we know it can be’ by moving to North Somerset imminently where he wouldn’t be able to vote for a mayor anyway!

Oh dear. This must be one of, not only, the shortest political careers in the city’s history but one of the most inept. Is it even as much as nine months since LIB DEM VOTER Bugger Hall’s ego joined the Greens just to grab that winnable Bristol West parliamentary seat he went on to spectacularly lose?

#RIGHT2STRIKE: PROTEST IN BRISTOL CITY CENTRE, MONDAY 2 NOVEMBER

On Monday 2nd November, Bristol will voice its opposition to the government’s ‘Trade Union Bill’, in a vibrant protest with music, giant banners, spectacle and speeches!

The protest coincides with the TUC lobby of parliament as it votes on this bill, which seriously attacks the hard-fought-for rights to strike or organise for proper standards, pay and conditions at work.

PeoplesAssembly

Whether you’re in a union or not, this Bill is designed to undermine resistance to the Tory austerity agenda, to privatisation and a low-pay – and move towards a rights-free workforce: so let’s all show our solidarity!

Bristol People’s Assembly are hoping for a massive turn-out: invite all your friends and colleagues to join the protest. The theme for the protest will be Workers’ Rights, or What Have The Unions Ever Done For Us?, a tongue-in-cheek nod to Monty Python…

Bring your home-made placards and banners – as well as your trade union gear – to say YES for what unions and workers’ rights have done for you: YES TO SICK PAY, YES TO WORKERS’ RIGHTS and YES TO OUR RIGHT TO STRIKE – and NO TO THE TRADE UNION BILL.

If you can’t make it on the day, show your support on social media with hashtag #NoTUBill – or update your status with what workers’ rights means to you and have done for you, using #RIGHT2STRIKE

See you there!

Contact: bristolpeoplesassembly@gmail.com / http://www.bristolpeoplesassembly.org/