Tag Archives: Discrimination

LABOUR: DISABILITY DISCRIMINATION SHOCKER AS DEAF CANDIDATE DUMPED

Leave a reply
Lee-Starr-Elliott-photo-Lee-Starr-Elliott-1200x675

Labour’s long-term candidate for Hengrove and Whitchurch Park has been ruthlessly dumped by the regional party bureaucrats for requesting support as a deaf person!

Here’s the comments posted to Facebook by the former candidate, Lee Starr-Elliot on this latest Labour row

*Statement to explain my no longer standing as your local candidate! *

I am taking the time to write this to explain why after 3 years I am no longer your candidate for Labour! After applying to be a candidate back in 2018, going through the candidate approval process including checks, a panel interview organised by the Bristol Labour Local Campaign Forum (LCF) and endorsement by Bristol Labour members, I was selected by my local ward as their candidate in 2019.

I was very proud of this as I had the best interests of the ward at heart and wanted to bring back a sense of strong local community and ownership to the area, something I’ve felt has been lacking as our current councillors seem to prefer to play party politics rather than focus on the needs of local people.

However, after the pandemic hit and the 2020 elections were delayed, I lost running mates one by one due to personal or work-related issues. In the meantime I continued to move forward, founding the BS14 Community Support Group on Facebook, which has brought together local people, allowing us to help and support each other directly or by sharing helpful information. It made me proud to see BS14 come together in this way and I thank everyone who made it a success and hope it continues.

Most people are aware that I am Deaf. In previous elections, central government has provided the Enable fund to support the access needs of disabled people so that they can run for public office. The government withdrew this for these elections. I sought support from my Regional office, in line with their duties under the Equality Act, for example to provide a BSL interpreter for local, regional and national events and online training. I’m sad to say my request was not even acknowledged.

This led me to filing an official complaint, which has yet to be resolved, despite having the made the complaint nearly 5 months ago! When I asked for assistance with phone banking I was fobbed off and told to get people to volunteer! This put me at a serious disadvantage as many other people across all parties were able to phonebank, leaving me as the only one unable to do so, as by this stage the other candidates had withdrawn.

As people may understand, I became increasingly frustrated and angry that I was being discriminated this way and I took to social media to call out bad practices and condemn the leadership for failures in supporting members. Instead, they were busy suspending members for supporting the local members’ right to debate and offer solidarity to the suspended previous leader of the party, Jeremy Corbyn!

While all this was happening, the regional office of the Labour Party was preventing constituency party groups from carrying out democratically agreed actions such as supporting food banks with financial donations from the members’ fund. Regional staff even went as far as suspending the AGM of a nearby constituency party and announcing they would run it months later – allowing them time to install their preferred members into positions. When they eventually ran the AGM it was shambolic and clearly designed to exclude members’ voices!

Similarly, the selection of the West of England Mayoral candidate was decided undemocratically, with the previous candidate Lesley Mansell and other left-leaning candidates excluded from the membership ballot by a regional panel. This has clearly backfired on the local party, as members are not happy to campaign for someone who while he was an MP voted for the Iraq War and is clearly against helping people such as students!!

It seems that by standing up for myself against discrimination and calling out where the party is failing nationally and regionally and when it is bullying the membership, this has resulted in the Labour Party refusing to endorse me at the local elections on May 6th. I would like to acknowledge the support of a small group of candidates and supporters who are leading the fight both locally and nationally against actions of politicians from all parties in order to make Bristol and the country better.

I wouldn’t have got this far without them, as the discrimination I’ve faced as a candidate and a person within politics is emotionally breaking. However, I will continue to be as loud as possible and call out actions of councillors and MPs who are not transparent and are not working for the people who voted for them but are instead following the party line. I thank everyone who has supported me and were going to vote for me!

*Lee Starr-Elliott*

COUNCIL’S BEDWETTER-AHAB ALLIANCE HUNT DOWN DOCK’S DISABLED

Leave a reply
“All my means are sane, my motive and my object mad.”

A judgement slipped out by the Employment Tribunal on September 25, studiously ignored by our local mainstream media, is yet another nail hammered firmly into the coffin of Bristol City Council HR. The council department led by arch-discriminator and the Reverend Rees’s BULLY-IN-CHIEF John “Bedwetter” Walsh.

An interim judgement published by the tribunal announces, “The claims of unfair dismissal and of DISCRIMINATION ARISING FROM DISABILITY in respect of the dismissal of the claimant from employment (on 25th of April 2019) is well founded.”

Yes, Bristol City Council are firing staff for being disabled. A finding of disability discrimination means an uncapped award for the claimant, which may cost council taxpayers a lot of money. Surely this is all a huge embarrassment for a LABOUR COUNCIL that likes to waffle on about their exceptional commitment to equality and diversity at every opportunity?

This latest equalities and diversity shambles comes courtesy of Bristol City Council Docks Service and is, therefore, the handiwork of one of The BRISTOLIAN’s oldest friends, Docks boss Cap’n Tony “Ahab” Nichol. This notorious bully and serial incompetent – who describes his own supervisory staff as ‘WANKERS‘ when they’re out of earshot – should have been fired back in 2014 after a series of proven incidents of him bullying his staff. 

Instead he was let off after a reactionary old white man middle manager investigating the case retired before completing an extraordinarily long investigation. Ahab’s bosses then decided he could issue an apology and attend an equalities workshop with his staff instead.

Fat lot of use this workshop was if Ahab is now firing and DISCRIMINATING AGAINST THE DISABLED with apparent impunity and a corporate cheque book at the ready to fix any expensive mess he makes. We understand that as many as THREE disabled staff may have been offloaded by Ahab so far.

This latest disgrace also raises more questions about Director of Workforce, Bedwetter and what’s going on in his HR department as yet more INSTITUTIONAL DISCRIMINATORY PRACTICE comes to light at Bristol City Council. Ahab would have been advised and supported by Bedwetter’s HR team throughout his deliberate effort to discriminate against the disabled.

An appeal panel of well-remunerated ‘expert’ and ‘objective’ SENIOR DIRECTORS also would have signed off this dismissal on the advice of Bedwetter’s HR. Institutional discriminatory practice continues to RUN RAMPANT through the corridors of Bristol City Council unchecked and, as always, ends at the door of Bedwetter’s HR department.

How much longer will councillors tolerate Bedwetter and his nasty little regime of discrimination and bullying? Isn’t it about time they dismantled this rogue department and kicked Bedwetter’s sorry arse back to where it belongs in the1970s blokey culture of some provincial Yorkshire town? Then they can tie a large weight to the revolting Ahab and throw him into his dock for us.

Maybe that was what a TOP SECRET HR Committee meeting last week was discussing with Bedwetter and all of his senior HR team of racists, bullies and abusers? Or were they all CONSPIRING on another crude cover-up to maintain bully Bedwetter in post so that he can keep any uppity staff – who insist on taking their employment and human rights seriously – in their place for his Labour Party political masters?

How much longer can our scumbag council maintain the lie?