Category Archives: From Our Correspondent…

SLEEPWALKING INTO TOTALITARIANISM

While MPs and the media wring their hands and weep over a stabbed tory, it was not lost on us that during the same week it was reported in The Guardian that “[a] University of York study found that there had been 57,550 deaths due to austerity in the four years following 2010.”

This is slightly less than the British Medical Journal reported in 2017. They linked an extra 120,00 extra deaths to austerity cuts. These are not the only studies and the figures differ slightly but they all show a lot of deaths of the poor and ill.

This MP, who everybody said was a good bloke and cared deeply for his constituents, voted time and time again for cuts to welfare and services. But there’s hardly a word in the mainstream press about any deaths due to this. Not a single crocodile tear was shed in Parliament. No one minute silence for any human being lost to their families early due to decisions in Parliament.

What this one death means, at the hands of a lone nutter, is more security measures and less opportunity to engage directly with your MP. Not that that achieves much anyway.

The eagle-eyed might have noticed that the Tories are also trying to curtail our rights to judicial review. Even David Davies – remember that old twat? – calls it “an assault on the legal system” and “an attempt to avoid accountability”. But why the need to hold our leaders to account?

Well, deaths from austerity might be one reason. Another is that the Tories have just voted not to stop pumping raw sewage into our rivers. Apparently, it’s too expensive for the poor companies in charge of our water supplies who have already paid out billions in dividends to wealthy shareholders.

This vote came after our new-found freedoms thanks to BREXIT and the end of European environmental protections. Now we are free to swim and fish in our own shite. Not that we could have known because the government are refusing to allow access and scrutiny of any legal advice relating to BREXIT.

How has BREXIT gone so far? We have Northern Ireland, labour shortages, empty shelves, increase in prices, businesses going bust and disputes about fishing. We also have the £350m per week for the NHS but the Tories forgot to tell us that we would be paying that with National Insurance increases, which hits the low-waged worse. So that’s alright then.

And who needs scrutiny over the government’s response to COVID, the worse pandemic in living memory? That all started with the lack of PPE in care homes and the overstretched NHS releasing COVID positive patients into care homes.

The contract to oversee test and trace was given to Dildo Harding. The app did not work. They did not employ enough tracers but did spend £22 billion on consultants. Some racking up more than £6k a day, while Dildo Harding didn’t do too bad in her pocket either. I wonder how many of these twats vote Tory? In the meantime we have the highest death rate per head in Europe.

All through the pandemic the Tories handed their mates and donors contracts for millions of public money. Mainly to do stuff that they couldn’t do while ignoring the underfunded NHS who had the skills and resources to complete the tasks the private sector fatcats couldn’t.

Like testing. We have all heard about the 43,000 wrong results given for PCR tests in the South West. But then we are told that this has nothing to do with the sudden surge in cases. Really?

Who suffers? Us. Again. If they bring back a lockdown, it will not affect those in their country piles, fancy townhouses and gated communities. It will be us, in our tower blocks, terraced houses and apartments with a lack of living space. All watched over by state sponsored muggers, better known as the old bill, trotting about giving out fines.

There’ll be no chance of public scrutiny and don’t think public protest will be welcomed. Instead, the Crime and Policing Bill is curtailing your rights to peaceful protest. Not that the old bill ever lets you have a peaceful protest. They wade in as soon as it’s dark.

Like the recent Kill the Bill protests in Bristol. Remember how cops claimed to the press that they were provoked and injured by the violent protesters? Then later they had to admit that there were no significant injuries among the coppers on duty that night? A fact which received considerably less press.

Although the press did manage lots of outrage against anyone caught up in the police attack. Some have received serious prison time, including two women, who were kettled and needed a piss. Nine months each. Needless to say they were not granted Legal Aid and, like most working class people now, they had to defend themselves in court against a criminal charge.

It’s all a right mess and we are the victims. At the beginning of COVID, a leaked after dinner speech by a chinless Tory spoke of “useless eaters” in the care homes. They mean you and your family.

Is it enough yet?

The Burning of a Police Van is the Lighting Up of a Beacon of Hope

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By John Serpico

In a country that every month lurches ever further into Right-wing authoritarianism with nary a whisper being raised, where queues at foodbanks become ever longer, where homelessness is accepted as being normal, where huge swathes of workers are one pay day from destitution, where nurses are clapped then slapped, where foreign aid is slashed and spending on nuclear defense multiplied, where police attack and kill women, where protest is criminalised, and where its government presides over 127,000 Covid-19 deaths – with nary a whisper being raised and all with the tacit support of Labour – for people then to express shock and outrage at the “horrendous and disgusting” scenes in Bristol is fucking lamentable.

The burning of a police van is the lighting up of a beacon of hope that’s going to be seen all over the world. Welcome back, Bristol, it’s been a long time.

TOP TEN BRISTOL RIOTS: THE OFFICIAL LIST

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THE LIST THEY DON’T WANT YOU TO READ!!!

To celebrate last night’s small riot, here’s one list the local media will not print. Lovingly compiled by our Violent Disorder Correspondent, we give you Bristol’s Top Ten Riots

Now, next time you hear some poncey local liberal politician pronouncing on a local riot and claiming that “This isn’t Bristol” or “We don’t don’t do this” you can tell ’em, “Oh yes this is us. This is exactly what we do. The problem is that you are not us”.

10. 1090 Slave Riots

First reported rising of the ‘Bristol mob’ led by anti-slavery ‘outside agitator’ Saint Wulfstan. Inspired by Wulfstan’s opposition to trading in slaves with the Vikings in Dublin, the mob put out the eyes of a slave-trading merchant and cast him out of the city.

9: 2011 Stokes Croft Riot

In one of the dumbest police operations in living memory, on a warm evening before the first Easter bank holiday police shut down the Gloucester Road and raided a squat near the new Tescos. With young women leading the way, hundreds of people out drinking on the Croft attack police lines eventually driving them out of the area in the early hours of the morning.

8: 1986 St Pauls II

Police launch Operation Delivery with 600 officers swamping St Pauls after a series of pointless raids. Seen by many as attempted payback for the Police defeat in 1980, residents respond with their fists, bricks and petrol bombs for several nights.

7: 1936 Melvin Square Riot

Mosley’s fascist blackshirts attempt to hold a meeting in Melvin Square, Knowle West with an armoured van protected by police. Five thousand residents turn out to heckle them and pelt them with stones and turf. After a Blackshirt struck a resident the fascists and the police are violently driven out of the area.

6: The 1700s – one long riot

The riotous century. With the vast majority of the population having no political representation, riots were common. In Bristol there were uprisings over turnpikes, food prices, wages and enclosures. Top of the riotous league were the KIngswood Colliers, the weavers and Bristolian women who often led food riots.

5: 1992 Hartcliffe Riot

Police kill two Hartcliffe residents who were joy riding on a police motorbike. Hundreds of people attack police for several nights, with south Bristol estates uniting to teach them a lesson.

4: 1932 Old Market Riots

At the height of the Great Depression police launch an ambush to batter and arrest the leaders of a march of the unemployed in Old Market. Baton charges of the crowd of thousands are met by determined resistance with protestors ransacking market stalls and a coal lorry for weapons and missiles to chuck at police.

3: 1980 St Pauls Riot

Police carry out one racist raid too many when they have a go at the popular Black and White cafe in St Pauls. Large crowds of black and white residents attack the police, drive them out of the area and then have a street party. Anti-police disturbances follow in Southmead and Knowle West.

2: 1793 Bristol Bridge Riots

The widespread corruption of the Bristol Corporation comes home to roost when hundreds of Bristolians repeatedly protest about the continuing tolls on Bristol Bridge. After Bristolians repeatedly destroy the toll gates the leaders of the Corporation send in the Hereford Militia who open fire indiscriminately on the protesting crowds, killing 14 and wounding more than 40.

1: 1831 Queen Square Riot

The ‘mother of all riots’ is kicked off by Tories and Bishops who oppose expansion of the democratic franchise. Crowds of Bristolians attack four prisons, the Bishops Palace, Mansion House, Custom House, Toll Houses and burn down half of Queen Square, the lair of the hated merchants who ran the corrupt Corporation.

WE’VE GOT THE POWER?

Colston Hall Name Change – Hally McHallface?

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From our history correspondent…

It’s official, last week the board of the Bristol Music Trust (BMT) announced the Colston Hall will be changing its name. The Hall which has been in public hands since 1919 will be renamed in 2020 as part of a multi-million pound refurbishment.

Some history…

Before we start, we should get the history straight, as the fake-history from the Bishop of Bristol to the Merchant Venturers’ spin, plenty of porkies have been told about Edward ‘The Enslaver’ Colston.

From 1680-92 Edward Colston was an investor, official and eventually deputy governor of the Royal African Company (RAC), the premier Atlantic slave trading organisation in the British Empire. Under Edward Colston’s management and leadership of the RAC, approximately 84,500 enslaved Africans were branded and forced onto the company’s ships. Only 65,200 Africans survived the trip, a death toll in the region of 19,300 over the twelve year period. Of the 9,000 or so enslaved children under the age of 10 on Colston’s company slave-ships, more than 2,000 died, their bodies along with the adults were thrown overboard. The survivors, who were sold to plantation owners in the Caribbean, faced a short and brutal life of hard labour.

And it wasn’t just Africans that businessmen like Colston and the Merchant Venturers forced into labour. They were quite willing to coerce thousands of vulnerable Bristolians and others into working in their plantations through poverty (indentured servants) and legal (POW’s, ‘criminals’, orphans) and illegal (spiriting) bondage.

The profits of this ‘vile trade’ and the labour of hundreds of thousands in the plantations flowed back to wealthy investors like Colston and other Merchant Venturers. Colston wanted to be remembered as a ‘moral saint’ (sic) so he bequeathed some of his fabulous wealth made off the backs of Africans and others, to selected groups in the city that conformed to his religious and political bias. And the rest was history…until now. Finally, we can start to get Edward ‘The Enslaver’ off our backs.

Havin’ a laugh…

We have been chuckling in The Bristolian office over the last few days reading some of the reactions from right-wing nobs who are in love with ‘Eddy the Enslaver’…

Bunter Eddy showing his class

Apparently Tory Councillor Richard ‘Bunter’ Eddy will now be boycotting the Hall because it is not named after Colston! Is this because he will only go to venues that are named after slave-traders? Message from The Bristolian to Richard Eddy…Bristol is not named after a slave trader, so please try and boycott the whole city….in fact why don’t you fuck off altogether.

City Council Conservative group leader Mark Weston claimed it was a ‘knee-jerk’ reaction…tell that to the Reverend H. J. Wilkins of Westbury-on-Trym who began the campaign against the ‘cult of Colston’ nearly a century ago with his scathing biography of Edward Colston in 1920!

Obsessive Nazi Post letter writer R. L. Smith (the ‘know all’ from Knowle) ranted on about Counter-Colston campaigners ‘erasing history’ and ‘burning books’ until it was pointed out he had been campaigning to shut Bristol’s libraries for years! Twat.

Some have said that Bristol Music Trust are ‘pandering to a tiny minority’; it was actually a tiny minority of powerful merchants and politicians that put Colston on the pedestal that he sits on today. The majority of Bristolians never had a say in the naming of buildings, statues or streets. The tiny minority that the city should stop pandering to are the Society of Merchant Venturers who, since their Royal Charter of 1552, have been dictating who should or should not be memorialised – it’s for the people of Bristol to decide who is remembered and why – and there are plenty of great candidates.

Changing names and places… what about our history?

So what’s next for a Colston name change?…Colston Boys and Girls Schools? How awful darling… and how ironic considering the Merchant Venturers and their education buddies have been changing the names of our schools like confetti over the last few years. What ever happened to Whitefield, Withywood, Speedwell and St George schools let alone Hartcliffe and Monks Park? Seems like when it comes to our schools the names can be changed without debate by posh wankers from Clifton. And none of these schools were named after mass-murdering slave traders!

The same goes for buildings of historic interest. It has been pointed out to many of the opponents of the name change that, for fucks sake, it is only the name of the Colston Hall that is changing; the building is not being demolished. Unlike half of Temple Way and the historic Methodist Ebenezer Chapel and Avonvale School in East Bristol which were flattened without any debate by rich property speculators. It seems Bristolian working class history is worth shit compared to the history of murdering profiteers like Colston and the Merchant Venturers.

Of course, the next battle will be over the new name for the Ex-Colston Hall. A sensible solution would be to open it up to the people of Bristol to choose a name (what like Hally McHallface? ed). More likely is that some wealthy scumbag or a Corporation will buy the brand off the cash-strapped Council and it will end up as ‘Sir Rich Bastard Hall‘ or ‘Carphone Warehouse Hall’. Just like in the olden days when wealthy scum like Edward Colston and the Merchant Venturers had the run of the city and named everything after themselves…

BOOMTERRAGATE: MORE STINKS IN AVONMOUTH!

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From our Avonmouth correspondent

For once it’s not a product from one of either Boomeco, Churngold, New Earth Solutions or Wessex Water’s latest ventures with the Evading Agency that’s creating A STINK down in Avonmouth but it might be closely connected.

It would seem that our old friend Councillor WAYNE “DEE” HARVEY, protector of the faithful and lickspittle to ‘the boys in the boardroom’ at his other employers the BRISTOL PORT COMPANY, might have misinformed the public about his involvement in the recent VICTORY by Avonmouth residents who stopped the Nexterra biomass plant from getting planning permission.

Even local MP “CHARDONNAY” CHARLOTTE LESLEY congratulated Wayne for his spandex stretching heroics in apparently forcing planning supremo “KING PRAWN” CALABRESE to stop dealing with this matter under his self-awarded delegated powers. And knowing Chardonnay’s penchant for bandwagons and publicity, we applaud her selflessness in standing slightly out of the limelight to allow Wayne some much needed glory before he blunders toward his next POLITICAL DISASTER.

Admittedly Chardonnay had been crowing about her own efforts to get permanent air quality measurements in place at Avonmouth and her success in getting some form of analysis for “another year”. So she probably thought she could chuck a bone to Wayne before he commits POLITICAL SUICIDE the next time someone lets him out to play unsupervised.

Residents understand that BCC will only be extending the monitoring for NINE MONTHS at ONE site yet to be identified. And after listening to the woeful air quality study put forward by BCC’s in-house ‘air quality expert’ at the Nexterra planning meeting, residents expect this study to be handled with the same forensic, laser-like focus as the current one.

We therefore anticipate the project will run thus; FUCK it up, COVER it up and SHUT UP about it.

However, unfortunately for Wayne, as the chair of Planning Committee ALEX “DEAD” WOODMAN indicated before a packed Council House last Wednesday night, his claims are, er … utter bollocks! Tweedle Dee had NOTHING to do with getting this application before a planning committee as the time for a councillor to do this had lapsed. The plans were called in by a council officer, possibly ‘KING PRAWN’ although we await clarification about that.

BCC are truly amazing in their depth of knowledge though aren’t they? The peasants of Avonmouth should feel privileged we have the gigantic minds of people like DR MARK “NOT QUITE” WRIGHT (what’s he a doctor of? Ginger beards?). He told the planning meeting that wood dust was fine because his experience of constructing flat pack furniture that weekend after a week designing an incomprehensible IT strategy for the abysmal telephony and data management systems in place at BCC, indicated that BACON, yes BACON, was far more carcinogenic than the tonnes of unsuppressed dust settling on any unfortunate Avnomouthonian daring to eat a butty between zero hour contracts.

To be fair, another Councillor did point out that you have a choice about eating bacon, which might skew DR NOT QUITE‘s expert analysis of respiratory cancer anomalies and the huge variance from the national average of heart attacks and strokes in in non meat eating and non-christian or multi-faith but no-bacon-thank-you Avonmouthians in the coming decades. Until then, we suggest he can sod off and stop belittling the absolute nightmare his policies are causing far from his own leafy ward.

Outstanding questions that need to be asked around this bizarre planning application episode include:

Why did Councillor Wayne “Dee” Harvey claim to have intervened in a planning process which he had previously endorsed despite multiple objections from residents? In fact neither Wayne, the local MP nor the other Councillor Matt ‘Dumb’ Melias objected to the application in the first place despite strong objections by residents. This begs the question of whose interests they actually serve if not the residents of the ward?
Was the original attempt to rubberstamp the application through delegated powers legal or lawful? As we understand it, the application should have by its content and impact on the community been put before a planning committee for scrutiny and not been considered under delegated powers in the first place. We await BCC’s response about the ‘extra training’ or other such outcome from their investigation into ‘King Prawn’s’ professional conduct as a public servant in this matter.
Why have the Bristol Evening Post not printed a retraction of their story despite their own reporter being present at ‘Boomterragate’ last Wednesday evening and witnessing the exchange with her own eyes? A serving Councillor seemingly misinformed the public via a newspaper article. This was clarified via a formal question by a member of the public to the chair in the public chamber. The public record needs to be corrected. It would be nice if the Post could devote the same size content and position within the paper to allow Wayne to clarify his position but we’ll settle for two sentences sandwiched between Gimp costume suppliers in the small ads if that’ll help. A conversation with one of the reporters at the Post promises to bear fruit so we’ll give them the benefit for the meantime.
Is the appointment of an employee of the Port, as a non-executive director looking after BCC’s (and therefore residents) interests ethical or legal? Doesn’t the Councillor have a massive conflict of interest? Another recent incumbent non-executive director also had some interesting business connections and held positions of public office whilst presiding over the introduction and development of the wood chipping industry that sprang up at the Port during her tenure. An industry with such stellar names as Boomeco, Churngold, Stobarts Biomass, EGNI International, A&A Recycling and AW Jenkinson forest products. An industry that was prised tooth and claw from their positions of near immunity granted by the Evading Agency and BCC pollution control staff. Regulators who seem more interested in killing off fledgling businesses on the other side of the city with actions that could be construed as malfeasance in public office, rather than taking on multi-million pound industry players to protect the health and wellbeing of the public they are paid handsomely to serve.

Planning law seems to be a hot topic in CHERNOBYL, sorry Avonmouth at present. It has now emerged that Councillor Dee Harvey’s latest PET PROJECT to shore up his woeful performance in building community spirit after the civil unrest in the summer may be going off piste at an alarming rate.

It seems that Tweedle Dee has neglected to consult with the community he apparently serves and has decided that he will personally ensure that Avonmouth is put firmly on the map, well Google Earth at least ,with a MASSIVE XMAS TREE parachuted into an Avonmouth park probably by Chinook at 3am.

We understand that this Avonmouth Park, or the ENCHANTED WOOD as it shall be known going forward, will require a hard standing and electrical supply to be installed to support the illuminated tower of power Councillor Harvey has helped to secure via an anonymous benefactor from the Port.

However, it seems this development hasn’t been near the planning department and no public consultation has taken place as far as we can ascertain. Given the short space of time before the event is scheduled one wonders if ‘King Prawn’ will be called upon to grease the wheels of government after his recent successes with power stations and highly toxic ash storage within meters of residential homes,

We’ll have to wait and see. BCC officer APRIL RICHMOND of some local partnership quango or other indicated that because ‘it would be hidden’ in some sort of Tracey Island kind of way, the advice she had been given was no planning application or lawful process needed to be served; we can only hope the advice didn’t come from ‘DR DEATH’ MARK WRIGHT after a weekend building a shed.

Although, if they’re wrong, it sends out a very poor message indeed if the city’s planning authority doesn’t see the need to bother getting planning permission.

On a positive note for the west country, Swindon got twinned with Disney, Avonmouth gets BHOPAL.

Anyway, time to sign off from Avonmouth as I need to decontaminate my kids before bed.

WHY PRIVATISATION MATTERS TO EVERYONE…

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Writes The BRISTOLIAN‘s Social Care Correspondent:

So what’s this privatisation of public services thing all about, then?

Well, If you believe the papers, it’s the improvement of services because the workers who deliver them presently are lazy, incompetent, uneconomical and probably have a better pension than you. What a load of arse!

For starters most of the companies that are bidding to run our services also have shares in the media companies that peddle this one-sided MISINFORMATION.

The privatisation of public services means that large companies are providing services for the sick, elderly and vulnerable for financial gain. They have a legal duty towards their shareholders to MAXIMISE PROFIT – a duty that outweighs the rights of the service users or staff, who are often untrained, under resourced and on zero hours contracts with few checks on their background.

We are told that quangos like the Care Quality Commission monitor privatised care Well, they’ve inspected Holmwood House on numerous occasions and the home has FAILED EVERY TIME but they’ve been allowed to carry on regardless and people have died in the meantime.

After you’ve worked all your life and paid your National Insurance, you’d be hoping for some kindness and care with dignity. Tough. In all likelihood you’ll be laying there with your pyjamas round your ankles waiting for some sixteen year old on the Minimum Wage to perform a bowel evacuation on you. Her first time… Just like yours!

After all, they don’t want you being a nuisance and SHITTING YOURSELF because you’re in bed all day with nobody to take you to the toilet.

Meanwhile all that money you raised by selling your house to pay for it will wing its way to the Cayman Islands accounts of a private ‘care provider’. Fucking perky!

Let’s get down the Council House and do a bowel evacuation on those that are flogging off our care and see how they like it.

Anybody fancy some BRISTOLIAN-branded rubber gloves..?

THE RAIN IN SPAIN FALLS MAINLY ON THE… ASTROTURF?!

Commentary from The BRISTOLIAN‘s Football Correspondent…

While politicians and many fans cling to the belief that stadiums on the greenbelt for pros are the key to success, a GRASSROOTS FOOTBALL CRISIS unfolds before them.

Over the last two months, virtually no competitive youth football took place in the city. Poorly maintained pitches with poor drainage were waterlogged after heavy rain.

Our man not on the touchline but inside playing PlayStation with the kids says, “if a child missed eight weeks of school, they’d fall behind. WHAT’S DIFFERENT ABOUT FOOTBALL?”

Young people have sussed this. An under-14 at Rockleaze Rangers FC, told The Guardian recently about Spain’s youth, who rarely play on grass, so “learn from a young age to play well”.

He’s right. A grass pitch can hold three games a week. Artificial pitches can host 60 teams for training plus matches and they’re usually floodlit for play at night.

The technically extravagant and tactically sophisticated Spaniards will be competing for a fourth consecutive major title in Brazil this summer.

Meanwhile, England has not won a trophy for 48 years.

So, what’s your stance on grass versus artificial surfaces? Is astroturf the thin edge of a privatising wedge that will rob us of our last open, free-to-all green spaces, as happened at Packer’s Field? Let us know!