Tag Archives: George Ferguson

SPIN WATCH WITH MATT BAKER #1

A semi-regular series on the ‘chequered history’ of the mayor’s new spin doctor, MATT “PAGE 3” BAKER, former bag-carrier and sleaze slinger for Labour’s hugely entertaining MP for Rochdale, Simon Danczuk.

Apparently needing to top-up his paltry MPs salary of £67,060 plus generous expenses, Baker’s former boss, Simon Danczuk, bagged himself a lucrative NON-EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR gig back in 2013 when Shine Bid Services paid him £1,000 for a couple of days work a month over about 6 months. This salary works out at a very tasty £125k a year pro rata, considerably more than the majority of his Rochdale constituents could expect to earn.

Shine Bid Services help unnamed clients secure funding – usually from government agencies – and they make a big deal of the fact their name NEVER appears on any bid. “We are the back stage assistants,” gushes their website, “shying away from the spotlight to ensure you are always the star of the show.”

Which is all very convenient for an MP keen to sell their influence but keep any of the gory details away from prying eyes. Because, while Danczuk declared in his Parliamentary Register of Interests that he worked for Shine Bid Services, he DID NOT MENTION any clients he represented or helped get government contracts or funding for.

Of more interest to us in Bristol, where the Baker’s pitched up, is the fact that, Danczuk had two staff registered with the House of Commons authorities with Parliamentary passes and access in 2013. One of them was Matt Baker (based in the North West not Westminster) who on his own Register of Interests made a NIL RETURN.

This is rather odd as Baker’s partner Margaret Quinn works for, er, Shine Bid Services!

So it was all very cosy in Rochdale wasn’t it? Let’s just hope Baker hasn’t brought these bad habits to Bristol then.

MAYORAL ELECTION: will George make a tit of himself?

OLD MARKET THE TWATS ARE COMING

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Look out OLD MARKET – the hipsters are coming! Beards, fixies, overpriced coffee, skinny jeans, organic food, high rents and low IQs may be heading to one of the few shopping streets left in the inner city not yet captured by THE TWATS.
However, the formation of a new company – the OLD MARKET ASSEMBLY Ltd – by the gentrifying goons behind Stokes Croft’s Canteen and No 1 Harbourside, including Mayor Greedy Pants himself, surely spells the end of Old Market as we currently know it?
Although we’re not able to state exactly what ‘The Old Market Assembly’ thinks it is yet. You might as well assume it will involve some artisanal marketing waffle and a craft beer bar furnished with old tat flogging locally sourced food and featuring sub-standard jazz musicians most weekends.
A funeral for Old Market will be held soon.

MARKETS: THE PERSISTENCE OF UNEXPLAINED AMOUNTS OF MISSING CASH

The City Council’s Audit Committee chair MARK “NO” BRAIN’s presentation of his yearly report to Full Council in July proved to be hugely entertaining for public and councillors.

Sporting a dazzling Salvador Dali tie, perhaps to highlight the surrealism of it all, a visibly wriggling, flustered and confused No Brain finally had to come up – publicly – with an explanation as to what’s been going in the council’s MARKET SERVICE for the last three years and what his committee’s done about it. And what a gem of an explanation we got!

No Brain confirmed that at least £41k was indeed MISSING from the service. Although he creatively upcycled and rebranded this embarrassing and inexplicable disappearance of cash from his description last month of it as “A DEBT” (owed by no one) to a “NOT QUITE A LOSS“!

He then claimed – WITHOUT ANY EVIDENCE – that the money definitely hadn’t been “misappropriated” and this “not-quite-a-loss” was the result of “mismanagement and bad accounting”.

Raising the immediate question of what the hell is “BAD ACCOUNTING” and how does it make £41k disappear into thin air?

Can we all do that? Or is it only city council middle managers who are allowed to run a set of accounts so shite that CASH CAN JUST RANDOMLY DISAPPEAR without any explanation and then get formally explained away by an idiot in a Salvador Dali tie as a “not-quite-a-loss”?

At least we’ve all now learned how to rip cash off the council. Just generally fuck up your accounts by inaccurately recording any cash going into those accounts; pocket the cash; forget to reconcile cash in the bank with your accounts and wait for the council’s Internal Auditors to formally sign it off as a “not-quite-a- loss” due to “mismanagement”!

This is all a change of tune from April, however, when finance bosses led by their Service Director Peter “What Crisis?” Gillett told No Brain and his committee of gullibles that the missing cash was “NOT thought to be the result of misappropriation or BAD MANAGEMENT”

What’s changed since April? When did they decide that it was the fault of BAD MANAGEMENT? Are we seeing the wheels slowly coming off a poorly executed cover-up here as the excuses run out?

There’s plenty more questions to ask about all this too. Why are the council announcing this “not-quite-a-loss” now while a formal, FORENSIC AUDIT, announced in April, is still taking place? Until this audit is complete can the scale of their “not-quite-a-loss” really be officially confirmed?

So are council bosses still conspiring? This time to disguise any potentially bigger “not-quite-a-losses” from us?

An explanation is also needed about formal statements made on this matter over the summer of 2013 when both Mayor Bent Accounting and his sidekick Sir Gus Hoyty-Toyty publically insisted NO MONEY WAS MISSING from the Market Service.

Another, further, outright lie came in 2012 when the BBC were assured ON THE RECORD by the council’s PR department that NO MONEY WAS MISSING in markets and the whole episode was entirely down to an “antiquated” accounting system (even though the system was only a few years old!)

Council PR boss, Tim “Zombie” Borrett then briefed this exact same LIE to the Nazi Post in March 2014 when the bent little fucker bravely tried to blame The BRISTOLIAN for the suicide of his dubious colleague, Facilities boss Tony Harvey. The man DIRECTLY ACCOUNTABLE for the accuracy and coherence of the Market Service’s accounts.

At that time Zombie Borett was PEDDLING A LINE for shadowy senior council bosses and the mayor that butter wouldn’t melt in the mouths of any Market Service managers. They were poor innocents and unfortunates who had been horribly hounded by unscrupulous forces on the internet!

Zombie Borett also “forgot” to mention during his briefing to the Post that any money had gone missing in the Market Service. Now the very same markets bosses Zombie was aggressively defending are being fingered by senior figures within the council for “MISMANAGEMENT” and “BAD ACCOUNTING“.

It’s all slowly coming out isn’t it?

That Mark “No Brain” explanation of missing Markets money to Full Council on 21 July 2015 in full:

The issue of markets has been of some public interest in, er, some quarters.

Um (pause). Basically (pause). Um, er, we had an issue around management in the markets and the, er, loss, er, or not quite the loss (pause). The fact that £41,000 of marketing money. Er, rather markets money was unaccounted for.

Um (pause). Internal audit have investigated. They are of the view they will never find the £41,000. Um, er. They are of the view it hasn’t been misappropriated. It was just mismangement and bad accounting and that’s the reason we can’t find it. Rather than it’s actually been stolen … um.

MARKETS: THE LATEST LIE

It’s the story that never dies! Minutes finally published in late June for a meeting that took place on 24 April reveal that the council have discovered £41k in CASH is MISSING from their Markets Service. Just like The BRISTOLIAN’s been saying all along!

But how can this be? Didn’t Mayor Cover-Up and his trusty sidekick, Sir Gus Hoyty-Toyty, publicly assure us all in 2013 that NO MONEY WAS MISSING from Markets and that the Bristolian needed to stop making unsubstantiated insinuations? #endofstory!

Well, that’s now officially a load of bollocks – and not #endofstory at all – according to Mayor Foot-in-Mouth’s own Audit Committee. They heard ADMISSIONS from the council’s over-promoted bog cleaner-in-chief Charlie “Gutbucket” Harding, the Chief Internal Auditors and the council’s finance boss, Peter “What Crisis?” Gillet, that, despite strenuous DENIALS stretching back over three years, at least £41k of CASH has in fact gone astray.

Not that sensitive council bosses put it quite as crudely as that. Instead they referred to “A DEBT” of £41k. Albeit a rather unusual cash “debt” that was authorised by no one and is owed by no one!

Indeed, most of us would say that this money is “unaccounted for” or “missing” or, even, “STOLEN”. But what’s some deliberately misleading SEMANTICS between senior council finance managers covering arse and councillors?

This motley collection of expert finance bosses, who have taken just three years to uncover a “debt” that was first pointed out to them by a whistleblower all that time ago, were also quick to assure councillors that the “debt” was “not thought to be the result of MISAPPROPRIATION or BAD MANAGEMENT“.

Really? So how did the cash disappear then? Did it float out of a safe and up to heaven one day? Did it spontaneously combust somewhere in St Nicks Market? Or perhaps their Market safe is a portal to another dimension and our money now lies safely beyond everyone’s reach?

These latest excuses from council bosses are RIDICULOUS. How the fuck can £41k of public money not be accounted for and it not be the fault of anyone? Do they take us all for fools?

Indeed, when pressed, the council’s USELESS pair of Chief Internal Auditors were forced to admit that they were “not able to determine what had happened to the money”! So quite how the pair of COVER-UP merchants can then state categorically that it’s nothing to do with “misappropriation or bad management” is anyone’s guess. Mainly theirs!

Mayor Cash Loss’s Tory cabinet finance chief, Geoff “Cods” Gollop, was even forced to wade in at the meeting. Blustering that “accounting systems have been changed to ensure that this situation is rectified for the future”. But what “situation” is he referring to? How exactly do you rectify an INEXPLICABLE OCCURRENCE?

At least councillors on the Audit Committee, after spending three years staring gormlessly into space listening to increasingly WILD EXPLANATIONS from finance bosses while their Markets Service was ripped off, may have finally woken up.

They’ve demanded a further report from their BENT finance chiefs by the autumn and demanded an update on the so-called “debt” for their next meeting.

But what happens next? Will anyone call the POLICE to investigate where our money is as it’s obvious our council has either no idea or is covering up what’s happened to it?

Media creams itself as mayor reverse ferrets

Was it just last year that Mayor Blind Eye BANNED members of the public from asking him questions at meetings that didn’t relate to items on the agenda? Why indeed it was!

But that didn’t stop the Bristol 24/7 vanity publishing website wetting itself with joy at the announcement by Mayor Ferret that he would now be PERMITTING the public to ask him questions at meetings that didn’t relate to items on his agenda!

This “inspires more people to be more active in our democracy” gushed George’s web mouthpiece before explaining with a straight face that this was “the latest step down the path of empowered democracy”!

All neatly sidestepping the fact that George had personally BANNED these questions last year and has only reinstated them after being TOLD TO in a report by the Centre for Democratic Scrutiny about George’s council’s lack of democracy.

Playing out at our expense?

playingout

Well done to Alice Ferguson and Naomi Fuller, Director and Communications Director respectively of the hopelessly middle class Southville charity, PLAYING OUT, for delivering one of the best self-inflicted PR disasters we’ve ever seen.

A sort of Reclaim the Streets for the Cath Kidston set, this ridiculous charity blocks upmarket residential streets for a few hours every month so kids can get to play in the road “like we did in the old days”.

The two lovely Southville gals behind the charity, one of whom just happens to be Mayor Bent Trousers’ DAUGHTER, were given some space recently in the mayor’s new personal propaganda machine, the Bristol 24/7 website, to “set the record straight”.

What record ? Why was this record ever bent? What’s going on?

Playing Out wanted to assure us that the fairly LARGE SUMS of public money that have come the charity’s way from the council since daddy arrived on the hot seat at the Counts Louse is purely down to their brilliance and an overwhelming public need for middle class kids to access boutique retro play experiences.

What better possible way is there to spend public cash in this age of austerity? Especially while the mayor personally cuts real public services – where his relatives don’t work – to the bone.

“It’s funding which was ring-fenced for this kind of initiative. It doesn’t all just come out of one big pot, that’s not how it works,” the pair bleated to Bristol 24/7 while not bothering to explain how it did work.

“It’s two years before Bristol as a city even decided it wanted an elected mayor that Alice and Amy held their first playing out session,” the site wailed neatly sidestepping the issue of when their generous levels of funding began.

And then the coup de grace. A Bristol City Council PR is rustled up to RUBBERSTAMP the vacuous claims: “The Mayor has never been involved in a funding decision relating to Playing Out. He took office on November 19 2012, meaning the majority of funding decisions pre-date his time in office.”

Alas, within two hours of this bizarre PR manouevre – randomly denying any nepotism exists between the mayor and his daughter for no apparent reason – an article had appeared from the mayor-watching Bristol News team rebutting the council’s and the charity’s claims.

Up to the Mayor’s election in 2012, Playing Out were paid by the council the fairly reasonable amount – for what they do – of £12,000. By the end of the Mayor’s first year in office that figure was £92,000!!!

That’s, almost, an EIGHT-FOLD increase and none of it from especially ring-fenced council funds for middle class mums with daft ideas in Southville so far as we can see.

So did this £92k not “come out of one big pot at the city council”? Who knows? Neither Playing Out nor 24/7 provide evidence one way or the other. Although the council’s published expenditure records do nothing to disabuse the public of the notion that Playing Out’s money did indeed just come out of one big pot at the council.

Now 24/7 and Playing Out have set the hare loose, this hugely embarrassing issue for the mayor looks set to run and run in the lead-up to next year’s mayoral election.

So who’s idea was it for Playing Out to go to the local media with a load of partial information for us to pick over then?

EXCLUSIVE!!!! 6th PROPOSAL ADDED TO BRISTOL ARENA SHORTLIST

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We’re happy to confirm that a late entry has been allowed on to the Bristol Arena design shortlist from Bristol’s very own Dru Marland.

In due course we’ll be running an EXCLUSIVE and BINDING public vote to discover what design Bristolians really want.

Watch this space …

MYSTERY OF THE MISSING BOATS

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What happened to hundreds of thousands of pounds worth of FERRY BOATS owned by the original Bristol Ferry Boat company after it went tits up within days of its 42 per cent shareholder “UNCLE” GEORGE FERGUSON taking office as mayor?

According to a report presented by Bristol City Council officers to their Place Scrutiny Commission in October, the boats were SOLD to the first of the so-called ‘Phoenix’ ferry companies set up in the wake of the collapse, Ferryboats of Bristol Ltd.

This short-lived private company was set up in January 2013 by a former director of Uncle George’s failed ferry company, IAN “BUNGLE” BUNGARD, and ran ferries around the docks until it was wound up in May 2013 when another company, the Bristol Community Ferry Boat Company, took over the routes and, apparently, the ferries.

However, we’ve seen the closing balance sheet for Bungard’s Ferryboats of Bristol Ltd and it only ever had £2 worth of assets held in cash throughout its short existence. There’s no sign of any ferry boats at all.

However, we do know, from the liquidators report, that the boats were sold by the liquidators “by private treaty’ for £171k in December 2012. The question is to who? And how did they then end up at this new community co-operative ferry operation run by ‘THE FRIENDS OF GEORGE’, the Bristol Community Ferry Boat Company?

A further mystery surrounds the disappearance and reappearance of at least one of the ferry boats, ‘THE ELIZABETH’. In June 2012 the boat was listed in audited accounts supplied to Bristol City Council as an asset of Fergie’s collapsed Bristol Ferry Boat Company.

So how come the boat is now registered at Ferguson’s address at THE TOBACCO FACTORY and is up for sale for £15k? This invites obvious questions such as how did this asset of the collapsed Bristol Ferry Boat Company end up in George’s possession?

And if it was an asset of the original Ferry Boat Company, that Fergie was a 42 per cent shareholder in, why was the boat not sold and the monies used to pay creditors as bankruptcy law requires?

ARENA: BREAKING THE BANK?

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IS THERE A BLACK HOLE IN THE WHITE ELEPHANT?

The budget for mayor “Uncle” George Ferguson’s major VANITY PROJECT and RE-ELECTION STRATEGY is spiralling dangerously out of control.

Despite efforts from the mayor to GAG councillors from revealing the financial shambles, we know that CANCELLATION of any on-site car parking and the LOSS of revenue has smashed a £10m-sized budget black hole into mayor’s £90m Arena project.

Meanwhile a council Scrutiny Committee in August UNCOVERED a further £4m worth of costs for the project, pushing the total budget up to at least £94m.

Now it’s been revealed that the owners of the land, the Homes and Communities Agency (HCA), are DEMANDING payment for their land, which the council had originally claimed would be a freebie. The HCA are believed to want around £4m for the land.

So just a year into the project and costs have been already pushed up by around NINE PER CENT to £98m before a shovel’s got anywhere near the site. The total FUNDING GAP for the project is now at least £18m and this will have to be met by council taxpayers and through cuts to services already being hammered by austerity.

Concerns have also been expressed about other aspects of Uncle George’s funding proposals. He claims £53m will come from the City Deal ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT FUND.

A complicated mechanism based on borrowing against any increased receipts from business rates in the TEMPLE QUARTER ENTERPRISE ZONE. At present there’s little sign of much growth in these receipts, which leaves Bristol council taxpayers, as lenders of the last resort, to pick up that tab too.

Uncle George claims a further £38m of funding will come from rental and operating income from the arena. Although this figure has been described to us as “VERY AMBITIOUS” and, again, any shortfall will have to be met by the council taxpayer.

Uncle George, however, remains wedded to his basketcase project, which was one of the few actual promises he made in his election campaign. Delivering an arena, regardless of cost, may also be the only chance this highly unpopular mayor has of getting RE-ELECTED.

So worried is Uncle George about these PRECARIOUS FINANCES being revealed, he got his useless new legal boss SANJAY “UNDER” PRASHAR to invent a so-called ‘BLANKET EXEMPT STATUS’ gag to stop anyone discussing them.

Uncle George now has also removed the responsibility for the arena from the council’s PLACE SCRUTINY COMMISSION who had been asking some tricky questions and given it to the friendlier OVERVIEW AND SCRUTINY COMMISSION.

The commission’s Labour Chair, STEVE PEARCE, has already been quoted as saying “I won’t be pushing the mayor too hard on this.”

Thanks Steve. Nice to know you’re looking after us so well.