Category Archives: The BRISTOLIAN Says

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THE BRISTOLIAN SAYS … HUMAN BEINGS ARE NOT RUBBISH

As the amount of homeless people on our streets grows due to government austerity measures, the Reverend and his mates have a plan.

So, who’s in charge? Social Care? No. Health? No. Er, Bristol Waste are carrying out the new procedure. They’re now threatening to steal what little property rough sleepers have in an attempt to clear the streets of homeless people so that shoppers can consume without having to trip over them.

People don’t choose to become homeless. This is a direct effect of austerity that has cut funds to services. The Nazi Post did a study of rough sleepers and discovered people who had lost their business, broken their back and couldn’t work or got kicked out of a flat when their dad died of cancer.

Most of these human beings are at their wits end. They have tried to get help but to no avail. So they’re sleeping on the streets with their worldly possessions. Many have been beaten up. One comrade was dragged from his tent, beaten with a golf club and told to “fuck off back to his own country”. Do they mean Somerset, which is where he came from? Others have had their possessions burned.

Now the Council are joining in. One young woman told a reporter that she was scared to go to the toilet in case council bullies stole her stuff. This is theft. She was even trying to sell a few trinkets, so that she would not be forced into prostitution and the Council stopped her doing that. This is just bullying people who lack the resources to fight back. Why is Bristol Waste even handling this? Human beings are not garbage. The remaining stuff they have is theirs, just like ours in our homes.

Maybe, the next time our Mayor leads the “masses” on another march against his austerity measures, he doesn’t want to trip over the casualties of his own endeavours? Spend some of your reserves you cunt! We also understand that when he has his jolly for fellow global mayors later this year, they do not want to see people lying in the streets. It might put them off the canapes and champagne as they discuss what a terribly difficult job they do.

Stealing people’s stuff will not make them go away. Until the authorities in this city stand up to central government, it will get worse. Bullying is not the answer. They teach you that at school Marvin. Also, remember, many working class people are one paycheck away from becoming homeless themselves. It can happen to anyone in Tory Britain, which is a sobering thought.

Please try to give some cash to the homeless. They do not choose to sleep out in a damp sleeping bag during winter. And if you see the council bullies stealing property from the homeless, stop them. Talk to them. See where they are taking the stolen property and try to help the human being who is being attacked.

They are not a problem, the inequalities of wealth are. The Mayor is a fucking hypocrite.

Christmas Party Time!

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“MAKE BRISTOL SHIT AGAIN”

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Those of you who’ve spotted these stickers around our fair city, are probably wondering what this is all about. Well rumour has it that it’s the new initiative from the Right Asshole Reverend Marvin Rees …

Following his ingenious idea to get people to march against the cuts he’s making and even having the front to get up on a stage and complain – about himself we suppose? His next wheeze is to try to justify his cuts to libraries and our other public services. Is he trying to make Bristol shit again?

Some of us think Bristol is a grand old city and it’s only twats like Rees and his elitist mates that are shite. Because, now, our wonderful Mayor is going to make our more cuts, leading to homelessness, social services in freefall, no childcare places, parks in a mess, traffic jams, low wages – you won’t even be able to take your kids to the libraries any more. We could go on, but congrats to the Rev, his plans for our city really will make it shit.

Perhaps he’ll plan another march for the people of Bristol to celebrate just how shit he’s made it? He can lead a march of suicidal residents through the streets of Bristol and encourage boisterous chants of “what do we want?” – “more shit”; “when do we want it?” – “now!”

Meanwhile, our glorious leader, the Reverend Make-it-Shit is planning to spend £150k on a grand summit of Mayors from around the world just to rub his shit in our faces. We need to get busy and show these bastards that we want our city and our lives to have hope, with services and leisure facilities for all, not just for some canape crunching elitist mayors and their hangers-on hell bent on pissing on us.

To the fucking streets and rub their noses in the shit.

THE BRISTOLIAN SAYS …

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All across Europe, like PSYCHOTIC MANIACS armed with chainsaws, politicians are slashing away at essential public services. From Bristol to Barcelona, Aberdeen to Athens it is like a scene from some low budget SLASHER MOVIE.

Life is becoming hard for those at the bottom while those at the top are seeing their wealth reach OBSCENE levels. A recent Oxfam report found that THE WORLD’S EIGHT RICHEST PEOPLE NOW HAVE AS MUCH WEALTH AS THE POOREST HALF OF HUMANITY.

The reasons for this are simple. Money buys power. The rich use their money to make more money. They buy off political parties to make sure they don’t have to share their money with the rest of society. They free themselves from all public control. They avoid taxation and they destroy public spending which redistributes wealth. They own and control all television and newspapers so that we never get to understand what they are doing and how the world really works.

The truth is staring us in the face. Their message to us is clear. They do not need us anymore. We used to be the Workshop of the World. We used to have militant unions and organisations which won us a small slice of the pie, however meagre. Today, the poor of China, Bangladesh or elsewhere will do that work for them for a dollar a day. The former working class of Britain is NO LONGER NEEDED and the rich are damned if they are going to share any of their wealth with us.

Well it is time to tell those PARASITES that it is THEM who are NO LONGER NEEDED. If we don’t stand up for ourselves, we stand aside and allow our children’s lives to become worthless. So turn off your TV, put away your drugs, dust yourself off and GET ANGRY.

Forget namby pamby petitions and peaceful protests. IT’S NOT OUR MORAL OUTRAGE WE WANT TO IMPRESS ON THEM – JUST THE SHAPE OF OUR FISTS.

MAYORAL ELECTION: COCK & BALLS

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The BRISTOLIAN has been running stories on and off since 1827. Same old shite really – POWER, CORRUPTION, LIES, THEFT, NEPOTISM AND DECEIT.

One editor in the 19th Century even ended up in the nick for fucking LIBEL would you believe? So it’s pretty fair to say that Bristol and this country have not changed much.

By the time you read this you’ll be electing another pissant (or perhaps the same pissant) as Mayor of Bristol after they’ve made all sorts of promises about housing, transport and whatever else they think will make you vote for the twats.

If anything’s really changed since the 19th century, it’s for the WORSE. Day after day we hear more and more about the state we’re in. One in five kids turning up at school underweight and malnourished. Whose kids? Our fucking kids!

The elderly are dying of COLD or HUNGER. Over 100,000 people in the West Country are reliant on FOOD BANKS. One third are children. Thousands of families go without benefits because they are two minutes late for an appointment with the government.

More people are homeless in Bristol now than any time since the GREAT DEPRESSION of the 1930s. Libraries, swimming baths and children’s centres are closing. The local NHS is cut to the bone. Even doctors are striking over conditions.

Meanwhile we work ’til we drop, get our pensions ROBBED and live in perpetual debt. All the while working on zero hour contracts for TYCOONS buying big houses, flash cars and yachts off our backs.

But we’re all in it together! Are we bollox! The gap between rich and poor is the largest in living memory. Bigger than when Queen Vic lorded it over the Empire.

The Panama Papers and the rich and powerful avoiding tax are the tip of the iceberg. Bankers are getting their bonuses again. And all the local politicians – Tory, Labour, Lib Dem, Green – tell us they’re POWERLESS to stop the austerity measures screwing up our lives.

Really? Is that true? Were politicians in Bristol “powerless” when they voted through a 20 per cent pay rise for council bosses last month? Were politicians in Bristol “powerless” when they kept their gobs shut about the 50 council homes flogged off to property speculators in the last year?

Were Bristol’s politicians “powerless” when they waved through Mayor Crook’s BENT Green Capital accounts? Are they “powerless” to stop our librarians getting shafted? Are they too “powerless” to mention our local academies are run by SPIVS chasing a fast buck?

Are they “powerless” to ask why the mayor’s daughter is being handed hundreds of thousands of pounds of public money? Are they “powerless” to DEMAND the streets are cleaned? “Powerless” to ask why public documents are suddenly SECRET? “Powerless” to ask why their useless housing department can’t answer a bloody phone?

Our politicians are not “powerless”. They’re IDLE, PATHETIC and WEAK. Voting for any of them is a waste of time. They will not help you or your family or your friends. They will help themselves whilst kowtowing to thieving corporations.

Once elected, local politicians will give away the power we give them and hand the running of the city to ELITIST council bosses on big wages working to the instructions of the Tories in Westminster. The politicians, meanwhile, will keep their heads down, enjoy the perks of office and simper that they’re “powerless”.

So what is to be done instead? Because if we don’t do something sharpish, we’ll all be well and truly fucked.

We need to get organised as a city NOW. We need to UNITE the city and start FIGHTING the Tory government in Westminster. We must CHALLENGE the property speculators and off shore property owners in Bristol. We must STAND OUR GROUND against greedy CAPITALISTS making money out of privatisation of public services. We must DUMP the politicians who say they’re “powerless”. We must REJECT the thieving bankers dumping debt on us. We need to fight back.

Organise. Prepare. Kick off. They’re coming for us. We must get after them. Sticking an ‘x’ in a box every four years just isn’t working any more.

BRISTOLIAN BENEFIT GIG! THIS SUNDAY! RED LION IN WHITEHALL! LOADSA BANDS, AND ONLY A FIVER!!!

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Benefit gig for ‘The BRISTOLIAN’, Sunday 18 May, Red Lion, Whitehall Road, BS5 9BP. £5 entry to help support your super, soaraway ‘Smiter’!

Benefit gig for ‘The BRISTOLIAN’, Sunday 18 May, Red Lion, Whitehall Road, BS5 9BP. Five bands for just £5 entry – and all to help support your super, soaraway ‘Smiter’!

Come one and come all to the Red Lion in Whitehall this Sunday 18th May, where a dazzling array of talent will perform their popular music songs for your delight, and all in aid of helping us keep The BRISTOLIAN a free paper full of the news you won’t read in the Nazi Post (until three months later)!

It all kicks off at half seven, and for a mere five of your English pounds (none of Fergo’s funny money, thanks) you’ll get five fine acts performing for your discerning enjoyment: Hater UK performing as Cider Riot, local militant ska-punk stalwarts Spanner, West Country cider-folk lunatics Surfin’ Turnips, the rocksteady stylings of The 1 Tones, and of course, big friends of the ‘Smiter’, Bristol’s own black bloc rap squad QELD.

And did we mention that it’s only a fiver?

If you don’t know it, the Red Lion (postcode: BS5 9BP) is on Whitehall Road at the junction with Lyppiatt Road, which runs between Whitehall Road and Church Road in Redfield.

There’s bus stops on both sides of the road right by the pub (Centre-Kingswood 6 & Centre-Speedwell 7), and more stops a two minute walk away on Church Road (Centre-Keynsham 42; Centre-Cadbury Heath 43; Centre-Kingswood 44; Centre-Longwell Green 45).

So get thee down there!

THE GREAT SCHOOL UNIFORM DEBATE: MAKING US EQUAL?

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A number of contributors to this site have claimed the state forcing children to wear uniforms at school will make them equal.

In an age of ever increasing inequality the claim is, of course, laughable. Although it’s a nice fit with the current corporate and technocratic “free market” agenda where evidence-free lies, artifice and appearance are promoted over simple facts or reality as our money is openly shoveled to the wealthy in exchange for worthless equalities waffle and cheap meritocratic drivel from posturing politicians and patsy bureaucrats.

But what about the children forced to be “equal” by these education bosses and their military agenda? Do they buy it? Are they as thick and gullible as the well-healed education bureaucracy making these claims?

Tony Dyer is the Green Party’s prospective parliamentary candidate for Bristol South. He attended Hartcliffe School in the late 70s and early 80s. Here’s his personal view on school uniforma:

When I started at Hartcliffe School there was an uniform code (blazer, school tie, etc) and the argument always used was that having an uniform meant that all the kids started from a level playing field and it reduced the pressure to “keep up with fashion”. The implication was that the kids from the poorer parts of the Hartcliffe estate (i.e me) would not be made to feel deprived because the “rich” kids from Whitchurch would be wearing the same uniform.

This was absolute nonsense of course. The fact of whether you were from the Hartcliffe council estate or from the Whitchurch private estate was the dividing line not what clothes you wore. We were always made fully aware of “our inferiority” and that there was no change in that when the school abandoned its uniform code a couple of years later.

What did change was that my parents no longer had to spend (with or without a grant) part of their limited budget on items of clothing that were only available from a restricted number of stores at prices that were higher than we would normally pay. Meanwhile the application for a school uniform grant was yet another means test that allowed some supercilious clerk to look down their nose at my parents for not being able to bring up their family without the support of the state.

I don’t have particularly strong feelings on school uniforms (although have always found it rather odd that we want to put kids into uniform as if they were all budding military conscripts)

What I do feel more strongly about is that there should be a dividing line between what teachers should have the strongest say on (i.e how to teach) and what parents should have the strongest say on (what their children should wear).

Unless teachers can demonstrate that putting on school uniform improves a child’s IQ and ability to learn, then I see no reason why school uniform should be imposed against the majority wishes of the parents who have to pay for the uniform in any case.

“WE ARE WINNING!” HOW CONFIDENTIAL SOURCES, TIPSTERS & WHISTLEBLOWERS HELPED ‘THE BRISTOLIAN’ BREAK THE BIG NEWS IN THE CITY…

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It’s been a bumper few months here at The BRISTOLIAN as we’ve set the city’s news agenda. telling you the stories no one else would. Our successes include:

HORSEWORLD

We originally exposed £80k-per-year HorseWorld boss Mark ‘Not That One’ Owen’s madcap plans to fund his ailing equine charity by building on the greenbelt back in May.

We’ve subsequently reported how his plans were rejected by a BANES planning committee and how the overpaid and under-performing charity boss now plans to stay put – despite his DISASTROUS MANAGEMENT – whilst making dedicated animal welfare staff redundant, closing the revenue-generating Visitor Centre, and generally running the whole operation down.

Hopefully this story will not end on that note, though…

CITY ACADEMY

Also in May we revealed that a row over racism was breaking out at the city’s most multicultural school.

This was confirmed in January when an employment tribunal found that a black member of staff had been refused a management post for a project to raise attainment among black kids at the school due to INSTITUTIONAL RACISM. The £43k job instead went to a white teacher – thus maintaining an all-white management team at a school, 70% of whose pupils come from a BME background.

HOLMWOOD HOUSE

We exposed this privately run for-profit ’HOME OF HORRORS’ back in December.

Since then the care home’s multiple problems have been reported by BBC Bristol, the Nazi Post, Bristol 24/7 and now nationally on BBC Radio 5.

WELLINGTON HILL PLAYING FIELDS

Following our report in November about council managers using outright lies to try to block this open space in Bishopston from being protected as a public amenity, the council has executed a rapid u-turn and registered the land as a ‘Town Green’.

Clearly senior council bosses decided that sending junior managers in to a quasi-judicial setting to tell porkie pies on their behalf was not going to work any longer.

We have also learned that hold-ups in the voluntary registration of land at Laundry Fields in Fishponds have vanished since The BRISTOLIAN highlighted them.

…So a big THANK YOU to all of the whistleblowers, well-placed sources and tipsters.

Without your inside information we would not be able to EXPOSE Bristol’s bent bosses, incompetent council chiefs or hypocrites in high office.

Together we CAN make a difference and build a better city for all!

WHY TRAVELLERS SHOULD GET RESIDENT PARKING SCHEME (RPS) PERMITS

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By an Ashley Ward resident.

Ashley Ward has a long history of offering refuge to many ‘socially marginal’ minority groups such as ‘travellers’ and ‘New Age Gypsies’. Some have been ‘resident’ before and since the infamous Battle of The Bean Field in June 1985 and are an integrated part of the community.

For many years this groups’ legal difficulties in the area were assisted by a specialist solicitor Brian Cox (now retired), an associate of Bobbetts Mackan Solicitors of Queens Square Clifton. Bobbetts still have Solicitors who do pro-bono work around civil liberties issues like travellers.

Living and working in a van is not illegal. Current road traffic regulations permit converted vans subject to weight and internal re-arrangements to be zero rated for Road Fund Duty and exempt from MOT regulations dependent on a ‘satisfactory’ mechanical inspection.

If a designated Living Van is seized it is effectively a ‘forcible eviction’ and should require a court order.

The Driver Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLC) recognises the difficulties ‘travellers’ have with registered addresses and have posted the following advice isinresponse to a Freedom of Information Request made on July 9 2012

From: FOI, Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency, 13 July 2012
In recognition of the difficulties involved for some keepers, (for example, travellers) in providing a permanent address, DVLA will accept a care of address. This address may be a friend, doctor, hotel, hostel or similar providing the resident gives permission for the keeper of the vehicle to use the address. PO Box addresses are not accepted for individuals.
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If the DVLA, a government agency, accepts a ‘care of address’ as a suitable registration address for travellers then so should Bristol City Council when considering permit allocations for their proposed Resident Parking Schemes (RPS).

THERE’S NO PLACE LIKE HOLMWOOD: WHY THE BRISTOLIAN HAD TO ACT

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**So, how did the Holmwood House scandal come to be plastered over the pages of The BRISTOLIAN and featured in gruelling detail at last Thursday’s Cabinet meeting?**

As usual, distant, arrogant council managers who refuse to be accountable to the public – even in the most extreme cases such as the unexplained death of an elderly woman in their care – are the authors of their own public humiliation and downfall.

Rest assured, the Holmwood case did not come out of a clear blue sky last Thursday: Kathleen Cole died in July and her daughter Annette Whiting has been asking questions ever since then and not getting any answers.

A key figure in the scandal is DAVID TOOLE, the Bristol City Council Health and Social Care Manager who oversaw the six safeguarding reports into Kathleen’s care. It was he who worked closely with the home’s struck-off nurse ‘consultant’, ISLA MEEK, to play down the dangerous quality of care at Holmwood House. By September, he simply stopped taking Annette Whiting’s concerned phone calls over the circumstances of her mother’s death.

So did he think she’d just go away? On the basis that when some middle manager plonker at the council stops taking your phone calls that’s the end of any matter? How wrong can he be?

It was at this point, Annette sought the only immediate help at hand, which was seasoned care campaigner Steve Norman and The BRISTOLIAN. She was immediately put in touch with firebrand lawyers Irwin Mitchell, specialists in public law, while Steve tackled the council privately and requested a meeting with the Social Care Strategic Director ALISON COMLEY.

Fat chance. Apparently Comley – herself an ex-social worker, but now a six-figure salaried City Hall boss – was far too busy at strategy meetings to worry about suspicious deaths on her watch. The actual response from Comley’s PA was that her boss was “too busy” and that Annette would need to complete a ‘Fair Comment’ corporate complaint form!

Because obviously the best way to deal with a bereaved relative – with a series of highly compelling issues to raise regarding the care your organisation provided – is to get them to fill in a form and force them through a useless bureaucratic process!

It was at this stage that The BRISTOLIAN took the decision to go public with Holmwood House immediately. It was plainly apparent to us that none of these managers gave a toss about Annette or her mother and were behaving as if they were not accountable to the likes of us.

Just how stupid and arrogant are these council managers? What planet are they living on, which makes them think they can treat ordinary Bristolians with utter contempt and get away with it?

Well, things have changed a bit now haven’t they? Rest assured Comley, her sidekick MIKE HENNESSEY and that lamentable safeguarding manager arsehole DAVID ‘WATTA’ TOOLE are now running round like blue arse flies trying to explain their bizarre conduct and lunatic decisions. And this is just the start …

To steal their own soundbite – “There’s no secrets, no cover-ups, no hiding places in Bristol”.

» Be sure to keep an eye on The BRISTOLIAN: there will be further Holmwood House revelations this week…