Monthly Archives: November 2022

OLD GIT WATCH

George-Ferguson
“Do you know who I am?”

Who’s this “rude old git” getting thrown off the Cross Harbour Ferry? Step forward Mayor No More George Ferguson! It seems the daft sod in the stupid trousers recently shouted at the driver of the ferry, “get on the boat, you’re holding people up” as the driver waited a while for some more passengers. 

“I’m not holding anyone up,” came the retort from the worker for the Harbour’s well-run ferry company, “you’re holding everyone up now because I’m not driving this boat ’til you get off it.” 

Cue foot-stamping and “do-you-know-who-I-amming” from the red-trousered nobody before the other five people on the boat finally told George he was ‘a rude old git’ and could he get off the boat!  The failed mayor (and ferry boat operator) finally did get off, muttering darkly that he would get the Harbour Master to shut them down.

Unlikely, as the Harbour Master is a thick lazy cunt and shutting a ferry down would involve some brains and effort. 


STARMER RALLY’S BRAHMS VIBE

brahms
That Brahms vibe

‘Enough is Enough’, the left wing campaign trying to get gullible socialists, tankies and bitter Corbynites to vote for Starmer’s right wing authoritarian Labour Party next year, brought their bandwagon to Bristol on October 1.

 Inexplicably, this self-styled ‘working class campaign’ held their rally at the overtly middle class St George Hall in leafiest west Bristol. “A venue,” we’re told, “a lot of the audience didn’t seem unfamiliar with.”

Local speakers included Acorn Union Ltd boss Nick Ballard and posho Green Party UK leader Carla Denyer. (Because it’s not a proper socialist meeting without a posh twit on the platform talking bollocks is it?) Both speakers talked a lot about “action and not just words” as the working classes face household economic meltdown this winter.

But the only action on offer seemed to be an opportunity to join the speakers’ respective organisations and listen to more “action and not just words” speeches on repeat from self-selected working class leaders with little idea what to do.

 Our man on the spot says there were no concrete proposals from this meeting and “no rank and file worker spoke and no discussion was allowed. It felt very top down.”

 About as effective as a Brahms recital then. The normal offering at St Georges.

KLU KLUX KULTURE BOSS HAS LEFT THE BUILDING

mussolini
Mussolini: would have been awarded a generous severance payment in 1943 from Bristol City Council HR

Is Bristol City Council developing a brand new severance policy especially for their racist bosses?

It looks like Genieve “Klu Klux” Adkins has been disappeared on long term leave for “personal reasons” following the Bristolian story earlier this week about her  racist outbursts. Isn’t being told to stay at home while you’re investigated generally called ‘a suspension’ when you’re not a senior city council boss?

This ‘leave’ gives the dodgy Bristol City Council HR team, now under the guidance of council timeserver, Steph “Who?” Griffin, some time to work out what the hell to do with the racist nutter they’ve employed and to organise a generous settlement payment to quietly ease her out the door.

Given the council’s loud commitment to equalities, will this open the floodgates for similar actions? Have tired and fed up senior bosses secured a new route to getting enhanced redundancy payments and large undisclosed settlements?

All you seem to have to do is work for the authority for a least 3 months. Organise a meeting with staff and members of the public, ensuring that you have some black and Asian attendees, and then spout some incoherent racist nonsense to the startled audience. Bingo!  The council will pay you to fuck off somewhere else with a settlement payment and an agreed reference saying how lovely you are with no mention that you’re a racist.

Gone are the days when gross misconduct could lead to dismissal. Instead you get a nice little holiday and a large wedge off the council taxpayer. Because, rest assured, this cost will come out of your council tax.  

Knackered council workers are telling us that the council cannot afford to pay for services like libraries, parks, housing, museums, transport or social care and these will have to go or be sold. 

But it’s not all bad and you, as a local resident can help. When the council put up your council tax to pay for this, there will not be any services left. So the ignorant council bosses you’re still paying for will not have a lot to actually manage any more.  Instead they can have a nice little rest and work on devising their lucrative route out of the council courtesy of Steph Griffin and her poodle Human Resources Committee of councillors.

Don’t forget, keep working excessive hours until you drop and keep on paying your taxes while not being able to afford to put on your heating or have a pot noodle for Sunday lunch.  We are all in this together (although some are a lot more together than others). 

Can we wish Geniveve all the best for the future and her new job? Perhaps in Italy? Writing up Mussolini’s memoirs? 

SEND SPYING: ‘NOT SYSTEMATIC’ MY ARSE

Hugh Evans
Creepy Hugh Evans, stalker of local mothers, trying to look hard.

Bristol City Council have been insisting via a ridiculous ‘fact-finding’ report authored by their ridiculous head of legal Nancy “Rollercoaster” Rollason that no ‘systematic monitoring’ of SEND parent’s social media ever took place.

Now a video clip, from the summer, briefly comes to light, before disappearing again into the internet shadows, starring one of the council’s ‘weak men’, People Director, Hugh “Cares” Evans. The “brains” behind the hapless surveillance operation, Evans says:

Would you want to read from your partner organisation or colleagues something on social media the like of which we’ve been reading on social media?

Leaving aside why Hugh’s being paid £180k a year to read the general public’s social media, are we to believe Hugh and his SEND manager mates must have been regularly accessing parents social media in a totally unsystematic way?

Or has he been lying through his teeth to a council lawyer?

PEACOCK ENERGY BUNG PAYS DIVIDENDS

Peacock
Overpromoted posh fucker won’t answer councillors’ questions about public money

Despite a promise to let councillors know, after a scrutiny meeting in June, senior council boss Stephen “Weak Man” Peacock has still failed to explain what a payment of £1.2m to Bristol Energy from his City Leap procurement fund was actually for.

 The City Leap money was signed over to Bristol Energy by the council’s Section 151 Officer under the heading ‘Innovation Services’ in January 2020. At the precise time the failed council energy reseller had a cashflow crisis.

The Bristolian has obtained a copy of the contract between the city council and Bristol Energy for the £1.2m. It has an appendix where ‘Services Supplied’ should be listed but the page is blank.

 To the untrained eye, this £1.2m, paid in an emergency to a collapsing firm, has all the characteristics of a public money ‘bung’ designed to keep a bellyflopping company afloat prior to an election later in the year. An election that, subsequently, never happened due to Covid.

Meanwhile, Weak Man, despite being unable to explain to councillors or the public what he spent £1.2m of public money on, has been promoted and given a pay rise! Now that Chief Exec Billie Jean Jackson has done Bristol a favour and fucked off to London, his interim replacement is … the inexperienced and underqualified Weak Man!

 Is Weak Man being rewarded by Rees for bent payments rendered?

SLASHER ASHER TAKES CONTROL

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Asher taking the public private

It’s getting murkier and murkier at Stepping Up, Asher “The Slasher” Craig and the Reverend’s scheme to promote more black people into management at the council.

 The council-run project, run by generously remunerated Christine “Wonky” Bamford, paid through a Byzantine tax efficient route involving a procurement firm and a recruitment agency, has been quietly outsourced since March 2022 to Stepping Up Leadership CIC. A new firm that conveniently shares an address with genuine council firm, Bristol Waste.

 The new company has two directors, “Wonky” Bamford and Asher the Slasher. The Slasher, as a member of the cabinet, has, therefore, effectively outsourced a council service to her own company with zero democratic oversight.

Instead, Bristol City Council’s departed Chief Chump, Mike “Billie Jean” Jackson has personally signed off all the arrangements relating to Stepping Up for Slasher since the project’s inception.

Procurement information at the council reveals that Jacko has arranged no framework, no tender, and no competition for Stepping Up’s transfer out of the council “for technical reasons”. Instead, Jacko appears just to have let Slasher grab a council funded project and then procured its services back from her for a fee!

 Since being called out on Twitter over the summer about this personal financial arrangement with council resources, the Slasher has, after calling her critics “Karens”, ceased any ‘significant control’ in the firm for now.

Even so, what a totally bent way for a council, its chief executive and a cabinet member to be carrying on with public assets.

KLU KLUX KULTURE

Klu Klux
Another meeting of Bristol City Council’s Culture and Creative Industries Senior Leadership Team

You may not have met Genevieve  “Klu Klux” Adkins yet. This dreadful posh type was brought in earlier this year from the University of Birmingham to head up Bristol City Council’s Culture and Creative Industries and destroy our museum service.

On 16 August at a meeting to discuss public programmes in our museums, she told gobsmacked staff, “Black people don’t make or spend money. Why don’t you programme things for white people?”

Then on 26 August, just in case any staff thought they weren’t dealing with a barmy racist, she told another meeting discussing targeting early years audiences, “It’s a shame Bristol has such a large Afro-Caribbean community. Asian families are much more concerned with children’s education and experiences than black families.”

We understand that the council has launched one of its slow and useless investigations into the conduct of this white highly paid senior boss. However, we also understand that, despite a supposed investigation into racism and therefore gross misconduct, Klu Klux Adkins has not been suspended as you might expect.

Paying a posh racist a small fortune to destroy our museum service – not rooting out blatant racism – is obviously the key leadership priority at Bristol City Council.

A READER WRITES: LAKESHORE / THE COPPER BUILDING, HARTCLIFFE, BRISTOL BS13

Copper-Building-FMA
The Copper Building, Hartcliffe, courtesy of Ferguson mann Architects

I am writing to you and your readers to make you all aware of the absolute disgusting service, we as residents at Lakeshore and The Copper Building are receiving from Residential Management Group (RMG) and Places for People / Urbansplash.

I moved into a shared ownership apartment on the second floor at Lakeshore in December 2017.  At the time, RMG, seemed to be doing an alright job of keeping the property up-together.  However, since then, things have gone downhill:

  • The communal areas and stairwells are absolutely disgusting.  There are large holes in the communal ceilings in the walkways; every time it rains, these areas leak leaving the paving slabs very wet; the paving slabs have not been cleaned since I moved in and are uneven; there is dog mess and cat mess in these areas; most of the lifts have been out of action for about 3 weeks now; and now we have a major problem with the hot water and heating.
  • We are on Day 19 with no hot water/heating.  I spoke to my local MP’s Senior Caseworker who told me that apparently, there are 4 boilers at Lakeshore servicing Lakeshore and The Copper Building, but only one of them is working at 50%.
  • spoke to someone at RMG who told me the one boiler should be fixed within 10 days, so that will be almost a month without hot water / heating.  There are seven floors at Lakeshore and five at The Copper Building.
  • RMG have now put Notices up at every lift (no letter or personal contact)  asking residents to book themselves in, between 9am and 5pm from 26 October to 4 November for a date and time when the contractors can enter every flat and flush through our HIU units. What if you’re at work / in hospital / on holiday, for example? What if the contractors can’t access every flat by 4 November? More delay!
  • I booked myself in for Wednesday 26 October at 10am, but am now being told by RMG, they cannot guarantee this time and day. People do have other things to do and can’t be taking time off work hanging around for contractors who probably won’t even turn up!
  • The whole situation is making me very depressed and stressed.  I have started up a Petition to send to the local MP who agreed RMG are ‘useless’ [She managed to get rid of RMG at Airpoint, West Street, Bedminster recently].
  • In this cost-of-living crisis, we do not need this to be happening.  I am having to go round friends’ homes just to have a bath or shower.  I even bought a fleecy duvet set yesterday, just to keep me warm!
  • RMG charge extortionate fees for Service Charges of which I have only paid half for this year.  I shall not be paying the remainder.

I urge anyone thinking of moving into Lakeshore, especially, to think again!

Thank you.