Tag Archives: Bristol Cable

CARRY ON MERCHANT VENTURERS

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Merchant Venturers Annual Garden Party 2025

The Society of Merchant Venturers (SMV) have been running (or at least trying) to run Bristol since their ‘royal charter’ of 1551. Nearly 500 years of feathering their own fat nests.

This unelected, undemocratic ‘union’ of rich merchants and  businessmen, landowners, property speculators and their ilk concentrated on controlling the port, overseas trade, the corporation (now the City Council) and of course they made a fortune out of slavery.

In the 20th and 21st century they are renowned for masquerading as a ‘charity’, whilst their members have their ‘fingers in the pies’ of the Port of Bristol, public utilities like Wessex Water, huge business deals such as the ‘Arena’, the Church of England, both Universities, healthcare, the arts, schools and institutions such as the Beacon (ex-Colston Hall) that have swallowed up hundreds of millions of public funds. The power of the SMVs purse dominates these areas.

As a manager at the Old Vic theatre explained to us a few years ago “you musn’t have a go at the Merchant Ventuers, nothing happens unless they say so”.

An important part of this historic control has been manipulating the local media and politicians for their own interests. For example, in the 2000s the journalists at the Bristol Post knew they could not write pieces which were critical of SMV projects, from academy schools, funding the ‘Colston Hall’ to buying the Port of Bristol for a £1.

This was because Post editors like Mike Norton were well-known for being up the arse of the Venturers. It was common knowledge amongst Post journalists that Norton desperately wanted to be invited to be a member of the SMVs and he suppressed any stories that might piss them off as a result.

In one case he even threatened to sack a journalist for exposing members of the Venturers trust (the educational arm of the SMVs) for defamation. Despite his sychophantic loyalty to the SMVs, Norton never made it to be a member and retired a few years ago.

Five years ago, under huge pressure after the city rejected the SMVs slave-trading idol Edward Colston, the Venturers realised they had to modernise in order to survive. In their minds this meant allowing a few women and ‘ethnic monorities’ to join… shocker!

Of course, these people weren’t normal Bristolians but had to be millionaire business owners with good political ties, seeking status amongst the big business people in the city. One of their targets was corporate lawyer, Marti Burgess of the Burgess family empire, inner city ‘entertainment’ property owners who made millions running clubs like Lakota in Stokes Croft.

Burgess, a close aide of Marvin Rees during his Mayoral electoral campaign in 2016, realised how powerful the SMVs were when she was asked by Rees to map out the power structures in the city. She recalled “I did not know who the Merchant Venturers were until I surveyed the city. The SMVs had interests in so many sectors I told Rees that, after the Council, they were the most powerful organisation in Bristol”.

The unelected, undemocratic and exclusive SMVs appealed to Burgess and Rees, as a powerful body to join and collaborate with.

As elected Mayor, Rees went along with most of the SMV members’ needs, continuing to pour money into their iconic baby ‘the ex-Colston Beacon’, handing the arena site at Temple Meads to Bristol University and the airfield at Filton to Malaysian corporation YTL.

Rees seemed to think that if powerful businessmen from the SMVs were nice to him, then that meant they liked him. Worried close associates in the Labour Party pointed out they were only being nice because he was the elected Mayor and they were after contracts, not because they actually liked him!

Rees even refused to engage with the campaign to remove the slave-trader Colston from representing the city, sending the cops after the Colston 4 statue topplers and claiming that the protesters were “privileged” and the SMVs were the “genuine anti-racists in the city”.

Meanwhile, despite the anti-racist rhetoric of Marti Burgess, she joined the SMVs in 2020, claiming she was going to ‘change’ the organisation from within. Fuck all has happened of course and far from leaving the SMVs Burgess has stayed in there.

In 2024, with the blessing of the “anti-racist” SMV Rees was paid off with an honorary degree from their (Bristol) university, given a ‘job’ travelling round the world to climate conferences. Earlier this year made it into the House of Lords, as Lord Rees of Easton. Not bad for a failed Mayor who managed to get the post of elected-Mayor voted out of the city.

However, there was a spanner in the works when Rees was asked to declare his business interests as a Lord. As Private Eye pointed out, Rees’ own ‘personal services’ company was being paid by Ameresco Inc, the US multinational that signed a billion pound contract (yes! £1,000,000,000) with Bristol City Council under Rees’ watch in 2021. Smoking gun or what? At the Bristolian press centre we waited weeks for a news organisation in Bristol to follow up the Eye article.

The only place it appeared was on a local blogger’s website and the blogger’s husband happened to be a leading reporter in the Bristol media organisation Bristol 24/7, but still there was silence.

Who is on the board of 24/7? Yes, you guessed it SMV member and close associate of Rees, Marti Burgess. It would be no surprise to us that Burgess suppressed this massive story. 

As a result of the yawning silence over this smoking gun, The Bristolian broke the story on the streets of Bristol by publishing the ‘Robber Baron’ issue . 48 hours later the cat was out of the bag when the Bristol Post ran the story, and then surprise, surprise even the fawning Rees propaganda arm the Bristol Cable were forced to say something. This is nothing new to us at The Bristolian as we often have to lead the way with ‘difficult’ stories like this. To this day 24/7 have left it unreported.

They say nothing changes, everything stays the same…..in the newly ‘diverse’, ‘modern’ Bristol we have the same old power structures, political corruption, businesses leeching off public money and of course members of the SMVs like Burgess controlling our access to news to protect their business interests and their dodgy ‘high and mighty’ mates.

The Committee for Public Safety

GREEN RIGHT TURN

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Bryher-Telford-Aardvark: turning right

Our favourite multi-named council character, Rob “Aardvark” Bryher (formerly Telford) continues to entertain.

The former Green councillor for Ashley, now pitched up in St George West, recently sneered, from the pages of Bristol 24/7, about ‘some on the left of politics in the city want to set a needs budget’ .

That’s a budget that funds what the city actually needs rather than what the arseholes in Westminster say we’re allowed to spend.

Who are these ‘some on the left of politics’ fools? Er, step forward Rob Aardvark who told the Bristol Cobblers in 2015 when asked about a needs budget for Bristol that “it could be a potentially effective strategy.”

What a difference a bit of power makes

PRESSING MATTERS

Pressing matters

LABOUR COBBLERS

Bad look for snooty community newspaper Bristol Cobblers (surely Cable? ed) as local freelancer Joe Banks breaks cover to reveal that they pulled him off a story last year. Then rewrote it themselves under close supervision from the paper’s Labour Party-friendly directors!

Joe was investigating planning permission granted to MEPC, part of US corporate investment giant Federated Hermes, to develop the sensitive St Mary-le-Port site at Castle Park. He was especially interested in the role of a fake community group ‘The Friends of Castle Park’ who vigorously supported the development at planning committee claiming to represent the local community.

Joe’s enquiries seemed to upset Nicola “La La” Beech, Labour Cabinet member  for planning, who went directly to the Cobbler’s directors – that conveniently included cabinet colleague, Tom “Plasticine Man” Renhard’s, partner – and accused Joe of  “harassment”. Joe was unceremoniously dumped off the story, which was rewritten more to Labour Party tastes by one of the Cobbler’s useful idiots.

So much for speaking truth to power.

COBBLERTHEID?

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An ‘equity and Inclusion practitioner’

Shocked Bristolians listened in increasing horror as Shereena Abbassi, a director at The Bristol Cable, suggested on BBC Radio Four’s’ ‘Rethink’ programme  on 2 August that vulnerable minorities should stay at home in order to avoid workplace ‘micro/macro aggressions’.

If you are a victim of any discrimination at work just crawl away and  hide under the nearest rock says the former Worldwide Head of Culture and Inclusion at M&C Saatchi.

According to this ‘equity and Inclusion practitioner’, ‘black and brown folks’ are not adequately protected by the Equality Act and therefore should ‘exclude’ themselves from the workplace if they experience racial abuse!

Maybe she should ‘rethink’ her job title?

PUBLIC ARE A TURN OFF FOR NAZI POST JOURNO SNOBS

In May, the Nazi Post turned all comments beneath their articles off without explanation. Although sneering by its middle class graduate journalists at public comments below the line had been a feature of local social media for years.

Between the crazies and conspiracy nuts – still generally a brighter and more entertaining read than actual Post articles, mainly nicked off Reddit, by the ‘professionals’ – the majority of public comments were highly critical of the Reverend Rees and Bristol City Council. 

Was this some sort of an editorial effort to reduce trenchant public criticism of Bristol City Council? A little local establishment help to prop up a bent shambles of a local public institution?

Whatever the reason, it seems to have failed. By the summer holidays comments under articles magically reappeared. With plenty of slagging of the Reverend and his council of fuckwits back in force.

Unilaterally censored by their local paper without explanation, did the Bristolian public start to vote with their feet?

HOT MESS PRESS

Our local press in their own words:

Media dissertation  Max Thrower

‘How does local media serve local politics in Bristol?’ enquires “Meejah” Max Thrower, recently appointed political assistant to the Green councillor group. It’s the title, that’s just hit our newsdesk, of his recent dissertation for an MA in Political Communications from Goldsmiths College, London, a  hotbed of fashionable post-modern drivel. 

The first twenty pages of the forty-page effort are therefore inconsequential academic gobbledegook that even Goldsmiths’ tutors probably skipped reading judging by the amount of uncorrected typos twisting any vague bit of meaning in there.

The second section is where the action is. Featuring interviews with self-styled local experts like Bristol Cobblers’ (surely Cable? Ed) part-timer Neil “Professional Bristolian” Maggs; the Nazi Post’s Tristan “Gruppenführer” Cork;  Martin “Latte” Booth, Editor, Bristol 24/7; Alex “All At” Seabrook, a BBC Local Democracy Reporter (LDR) working out of the Post and Cobbler’s not-editor “Door” Matty Edwards. Also along for the ride were The Bristolian, the Greens’ Carla “Head Girl” Denyer plus a rare appearance from mayoral bag carrier “Slo” Kev Slocombe.

After a risible quote from the Press Gazette claiming these indistinguishable liberal left centrists of our local press have created a media oasis in Bristol, it’s not long before our media stars are fighting like rats in a sack. “The issue of funding models and the supposed influence of corporate interests has created tension between media outlets,” and, “the tension between  outlets was most apparent between The Bristol Cable and Bristol 24/7 and the way that people viewed their funding,” we’re told.

“According to Neil [“Professional Bristolian”, Cobblers], Bristol 24/7 received money from a tobacco company that they used to fund a community reporter scheme. Martin [“Latte”, 24/7] described this advertising as a ‘necessary evil” and would love to see them not accept any advertising.” 

“The incident was called out by The Bristol Cable, who Tristan [“Gruppenführer”, Nazi Post], cheerily pointed out “get most of their money from philanthropic billionaires”.

“According to Martin [“Latte”, 24/7], The Cable’s grants allow them to “loudly criticize us [Bristol 24/7] for daring to accept advertising”. 

And on it goes: “People were also critical of Bristol 24/7, with Tristan saying that they “get their money from… a handful of rich people in Bristol”. [“Slo”] Kev believed that financial loss means they must be “bankrolled by a group of businessmen” that run bars and restaurants. Tristan noted that Bristol 24/7 have been called out in the past for “writing favourable things to do with pubs in Easton”.”

Adding to a sense of dodgy money washing around our gormless local press: “Martin [“Latte”] stated that Bristol 24/7 is a community interest company, although he didn’t know the details and liked “to just get on with the journalism side of things”.”

Neil [“Professional Bristolian”, Cobblers] then calls out his Cobbler’s colleagues as “Marxist in their origins and… a bit pompous and self-righteous with that at times”. Surely more to do with being middle class twats than anything to do with Marxism? Or is this Goldsmiths College style Marxism we’re talking here?

Rounding off a thoroughly undignified episode, Local Democracy Reporter Alex “All At” Seabrook – Marxist proclivities unknown – revealed that the thought of going out and speaking with actual Bristolians rather than communicating with middle class people on Twitter was “horrifying”

But last word to “Slo” Kev Slocombe (who should be a Marxist) hitting nails on heads: “[The Cable is] a vanity organization driven by mysterious tech money,” he explained.

In future, do look out for the local press complaining about politicians “squabbling”!

The dissertation’s solution to this local press hot mess is the completely shit idea of state funded media for Bristol. Probably the fastest route to creating the most dull ,unreadable crap imaginable. Censoriously micro-managed by some hideous unelected committee of wealthy establishment tosspots with a Merchant Venturer in the chair.

They will definitely not be Marxists.

Wanna read ‘How does local media serve local politics in Bristol‘? Drop us a line at bristoliannews@gmail.com and we’ll send you a copy.

Gotta a dissertation about Bristol? Send us a copy and we’ll give you the feedback your academic tutors won’t!

BILL GATES WANTS TO DEMOLISH YOUR HOME

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Gates: funding posh twits to promote demolishing your home

Oh Joy! ‘Community’ newspaper, the Bristol Cable, have nabbed some money off uber-capitalist Bill Gates.

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, operating as the European Journalism Centre, have handed the Cable £110k to come up with some ‘solutions journalism’.

First up was a feature on the future of housing in Bristol. Two ‘solutions’ were devised by the kind-hearted wealthy folk at the Cable.

We Can Make, based out of the Knowle West Media Centre, taking a relaxed approach to space standards, wants to put glorified sheds in back gardens of council houses so people can house their children or granny. So far, so ridiculous.

The next ‘big idea’ is so-say ‘estate regeneration’. Not new and already tried in London by the Labour Party, the premise is that the council hand land and council estates to private developers who demolish the lot and rebuild at higher density.

The company then, theoretically, rehouses existing council tenants displaced during demolition and has lots more homes to sell-off for a tidy profit. Trebles all round!

Why is the Cable, under the guise of ‘community’, publishing an article funded by a billionaire talking up the destruction of working class homes and communities?

Does anyone at the Cable engage their brain before publishing their shit? 

TOM RENHARD: NOTICE

Renhard-Red-Telephone-Box

It’s been brought to our attention that the Reverend’s cabinet member for Housing Delivery, Tom “Plasticine Man” Renhard doesn’t like to hear mention of daddy, Ian Renhard.

Turns out Plasticine Man, who famously condemned Western Slopes campaigners from Knowle West as “posh NIMBYS“, is no stranger to a luxury middle class lifestyle himself. As daddy was managing director of multinational building firm, Interserve Construction ltd.

Plasticine Man, we’re told, is especially sensitive about this as it appears that daddy funded his son’s education – including a pricey stint in the US – by constructing, among other things, prisons! Some might say ‘how apt’. Renhard senior even lists a number of his former directorships of private prison companies at Companies House.

However, rest assured, this is not something you’ll be reading about in the city’s snooty snorefest community rag, The Bristol Cable, as Plasticine Man’s partner happens to be a director  there!

How convenient for the city’s incompetent Labour administration.

WHATEVER HAPPENED TO MINI-ME?

The power of the Bristolian?

After our sensational interview on Bristol Unpacked with Neil “Maitlis” Maggs a strange thing happened. When asked about the Reverend’s ridiculous personal assistant “Slo” Kev Slocombe we pointed out that he came across as a bit of weirdo, always lurking behind the Reverend like a Marvin mini-me with a hand stuck up the mayor’s arse. Here he is lurking around behind the Reverend at a council meeting earlier this year:

Mini me 1


Then lo and behold after our live radio broadside, here’s a photo of a more recent council meeting:

Mini me 2

Where’s mini-me gone?

CLIMATE EMERGENCY BALLS: IT’S TREES OR CARS

An occasional series highlighting the nonsense spouted in the name of ‘the climate emergency’

“In a climate and ecological emergency, we need radical action, and fast …The alternative to schemes that involve felling a few trees [74 in total on one site], to safeguard and improve our active travel and public transport infrastructure [by building 166 homes in ‘attractive mid-rise buildings’], is the continued increase of car journeys.”

https://thebristolcable.org/2021/09/saving-every-tree-is-not-the-answer/

The Bristol Cable explaining why trees at Baltic Wharf – a site that has both the largest single collection of trees and the highest tree density on the harbourside – must be chopped down because ‘climate emergency’.

Further reading on the value of trees at Baltic Wharf

BULLY CHENEY’S LAME SPIN MACHINE FORGETS TO TELL US THE TRUTH

Cheney: always research and clarify as he may be talking bollocks

The Reverend Rees’s rookie finance chief, Craig “Crapita” Cheney, has issued a bizarre and slightly mental statement attacking the Bristol Cable after they published an article this week claiming the Reverend was employing MORE – not less – bosses at the council on salaries of £50k a year or more.

In a meandering outburst lacking in either PRECISION or CLARITY – and obviously written by arse-covering council managers for him – Cheney fails to CONFIRM or DENY the accuracy of the Cable’s central claim. Instead he ATTACKS the paper for quoting information he personally signed off as accurate and complete and ready for public consumption.

“The MISTAKE [The Cable] made is in the READING of a table of data contained in the council’s draft annual statement of accounts,” Cheney spins with a straight face. Of course, how silly of people to read the data Cheney supplied in his accounts! That’s not what a published “table of data” is for at all is it? Cheney then cheerily slags the Cable for “not approaching the council to RESEARCH and CLARIFY the nature of that data.”

Er, why would they? Is Cheney claiming anything he publishes needs to be researched and clarified because it’s probably a load of BOLLOCKS? Is this not a little time-consuming for a council claiming to be struggling to resource basic public services and confusing for journalists who might think information provided by a local authority finance department in their Statement of Accounts is ACCURATE and COMPLETE?

Cheney’s contention is that his “table does not reflect the number of council employees who receive a basic salary of £50,000 or more per year as was reported” because it includes low paid staff who received large redundancy pay-offs last year. On the basis of this THIN CLAIM, Cheney then demands an APOLOGY from the Cable while dismally failing to publish information that does accurately “reflect the number of council employees who receive a basic salary of £50,000 or more”!

Cheney’s demand for an apology is deranged for, at least, two reasons. First, the error is down to Cheney’s own SLOPPINESS and INABILITY to present information unambiguously and accurately. For some reason, the chump has departed from the usual custom and good practice of previous years and not stated in his accounts the number of employees earning £50k or more only because they were in receipt of large payments last year for ‘loss of office’. Why?

Moreover, despite taking the time to issue his long, rambling and self-serving statement, Cheney chooses NOT to correct his schoolboy presentation errors properly. Where’s the unequivocal clarification of how many of the 222 staff listed as earning £50k plus last year are only listed due to their redundancy payments and how many are receiving a salary every year in excess of £50k? Why is Cheney so coy about providing this SIMPLE INFORMATION in his daft attempt at aggressive rebuttal?

This leads to the second reason why Cheney’s demand for an apology is ridiculous. He hasn’t REBUTTED the Cable’s main claim – that the city council is employing MORE staff on £50k a year than they were a year ago! Are they or aren’t they? Cheney must know.

The Cable needs to tell Cheney, Rees and the Labour Party bullies to fuck off and provide the FULL PICTURE they have on these salaries. Like the council has managed to do in every other year they’ve published salary information.

What’s the big secret this year?

CENSORSHIP WATCH: THE BRISTOL CABLE

 

In an unprecedented move, Bristol’s co-operatively owned indie newspaper, The Bristol Cable, has REMOVED an entirely accurate article from its website following COMPLAINTS from the Reverend Rees and his bent coterie of very shy high-earning council bosses.

The article, published YESTERDAY, drew attention to a the council’s Draft Statement of Accounts, originally highlighted by the Bristol News Facebook page last week, that the Reverend’s council was employing more people on salaries exceeding £50k a year than they were a year ago.

The Reverend failed to comment to the Cable yesterday but did tell a Full Council meeting last night that the salary figures in his Statement of Accounts were INACCURATE and MISLEADING because they included the redundancy payments received by departing bosses.

This seems UNLIKELY since the Rev’s statement doesn’t list the gross salaries and benefits of his highly paid managers but the general ‘Remuneration Band’ they fall within. A ‘Remuneration Band’ would not ordinarily include one-off redundancy payments.

And if it did, why aren’t the twenty-one high-earning bosses – who shared out £2.5MILLION between them in redundancy pay-offs last year – listed and named in the report as earning over £150k last year as the law requires?

Regardless of these facts, the Cable has pulled the article and replaced it with the following statement: ***PLEASE NOTE THIS ARTICLE IS SUBJECT TO A COMPLAINT AND UNDER REVIEW***

Why has this article been pulled? It’s based on figures published in June by the council that were signed off by their Audit Committee on 27 June. If the figures are wrong, it’s the council’s job to explain this and publicly correct them. There is absolutely NO PRECEDENT or GOOD REASON for The Cable to pull a whole article published in good faith quoting publicly available official figures. Especially when these figures are yet to be formally denied anywhere as inaccurate.

It’s also laughable that The Rev Rees has put out a call across the city for “ideas” to deal with his budget deficit. However, when an “idea” involving not paying his bosses such large sums of money for sod-all appears, he tries to ban it!

If Bristol City Council wishes to attempt to censor information that makes the mayor look like a powerless twerp, then that’s their affair. But why are the Bristol Cable making fools of themselves by being bullied into supporting the council in their efforts to censor the truth?

The Cable article, obtained from the web’s cache is published below:

331 employees are now paid an annual basic pay of between £50,000 and £124,000, compared to 216 people in the financial year of 2015/16.

At the same time as general public sector pay caps and cuts has battered the council, almost every band of executive salaries at the council has seen an increase in numbers in the past year. Of the 21 senior pay categories that changed over the year, 18 have seen increases in the number of staff receiving top salaries.

These figures include the £160,000 a year council chief executive Anna Klonowski. It also includes at least three other executives who have seen their pay packets swell over the year by around £7,000 each, taking them to well above £160,000 a year including pension contributions.

Under pressure for implementing drastic cuts, Mayor Marvin Rees, who was elected in May 2016 has challenged anti-cuts protesters to come up with solutions, rather than just criticise. Defending the council positions on cuts, Mr Rees has written: “If we do not make a saving in one area we have to make it in another area. The consequence of one person’s priority is the de-prioritisation of another person’s priority.”

Responding to this latest information, Tom Whittaker a spokesperson from Bristol People’s Assembly, a coalition of trade unions and activists, said: “Clearly there can be no justification for executive pay rises when services are being cut, when many of Bristol’s poorest residents are struggling to survive under the impact of austerity and when ordinary council workers are enduring a long pay freeze.”

Mayor Rees was asked what involvement he had in these decisions, and how it fitted with his priorities agenda. He did not respond to the request.

The figures come from the 2016/17 unaudited annual accounts published by the council, available here.