Tag Archives: Mayoral Election 2020

BRISTOL LABOUR: PAPERING OVER THE CRACKS

Sack Marvin

Victory for Labour in all four Bristol wards at the general election – alongside bad defeats in South Gloucester target wards Filton and Bradley Stoke and Kingswood – just about managed to PAPER OVER THE CRACKS emerging along CLASS LINES in Bristol. A closer look at Labour’s victorious results reveals A DIVIDE emerging between WEALTHY INNER CITY WARDS now occupied and gentrified by the middle classes and the city’s neglected WORKING CLASS SUBURBS.

Could Labour’s historic coalition between organised labour and the progressive middle classes be falling apart in Bristol? For example, in South Bristol, Labour romped home in Southville, Windmill Hill and Bedminster grabbing TWO THIRDS OF THE VOTE. However, in the working class wards of Filwood, Hartcliffe and Withywood and Hengrove and Whitchurch Park Labour reputedly TRAILED IN BEHIND THE TORIES.

This pattern was somewhat repeated in Bristol North West where Darren “Dipshit” Jones LOST BADLY in working class Avonmouth and Lawrence Weston while he RACKED UP VOTES in middle class Westbury-on-Trym, Stoke Bishop and Henleaze. However Dipshit can point to some glimmers of light in that ultra-Corbynite stronghold Lockleaze remained unfaithful to him as did key working class estate Southmead.

Another story altogether unfolded in Bristol West, however, where working class communities with a larger mix of immigrant and black voters in wards such as Easton, Eastville, Hilllfields and Lawrence Hill, stayed with Labour to deliver Thangam Debbonaire a THUMPING MAJORITY – the largest of any Bristol MP – to continue her  vendetta against the left wing of her party.

What all this means for the future and for Bristol is open to interpretation. Especially as many people who voted Labour at the general election are telling us that they only LENT THEM A VOTE to keep the Tories out and they’ll VOTE DIFFERENTLY at next year’s local elections.

All to play for in the mayoral elections in 2020, then. (306)

REVEREND REES’S PIECES

REVEREND’S ROOST TRIGGERS COUNTS LOUSE SHRED-A-THON

A well-placed source tells us that it’s slowly dawning on the boss class at the Counts Louse that the Reverend Rees has NO HOPE OF WINNING THE MAYORAL ELECTION next May and will not be serving another term as they had anticipated. This, we learn, has resulted in some especially long queues at Counts Louse shredding facilities as “NO ONE WANTS TO END UP IN COURT”.

What have the Reverend, his PR bag man “Slo” Kev Slocombe and their dubious corporate property man “Head Boy” Molton been up to for the last few years then? Are the Reverend’s chickens en route to their roost? Will it require ANOTHER REPORT from STEVE BUNDRED to get to the bottom of all this?

Maybe someone at the Counts Louse should give Steve a call now?

PRIME IDIOT

“I WANT TO BE PRIME MINISTER,” announced the Reverend Rees to some unfortunate young people who somehow got trapped in a room and forced to listen to our Mayor’s meaningless jargon-riddled drivel at the LABOUR PARTY CONFERENCE last month.

What a great idea from the Reverend. Apart from the limited intellect, the thin skin, the lack of character, an Inability to lead, the hopelessly poor judgement, the crap Thatcherite politics, the corporate free market obsession and the dodgy gang of right wing evangelical mates he’s promoted, WHAT’S TO STOP THE REVEREND GETTING ELECTED TO RUN THE COUNTRY?

Surely even the Labour Party isn’t that dumb?

The Country Diary of an Edwardian Mayor

The Country Diary

Words on the Development of Hengrove Park

As I sit here taking air at the enervating window of my oak-panelled study and surveying the natural majesty before me, I can only express utter joy and no small sense of wonder at the good news just arrived. Nay, this is more than mere good news. It is a tumult of the most joyous news. For soon these green and pleasant tree-lined fields of west England, which impart the form of my current panorama, shall be better moulded by enlightened man’s industry into the spectacle of a housing estate.

This finest of aspects, alas, currently despoiled by no peasant ever toiling hard under the hot sun as God intended, will receive, by God’s grace, the best of human enrichment and utility. Gone from our land will be the idlers, chokers, hawkers and show men with dog, child, bicycle, car boot or ball perambulating aimlessly upon fruitless, lazy, unprofitable soil and revealing a sordid disposition toward non-labouring activity.

Instead let us rejoice as these loafers are swept beyond view to dwell in chipboard slums of their own making. In their place the hard working peasant and the labouring man will toil, sweat, struggle and overcome upon our imperial soil to yield the finest fruits for the most deserving. Oh how my heart yearns to see 850 trees uprooted and nature’s roughly arranged bounty better diminished to make way for man’s ingenious scheme of road, concrete, congestion and poison fumes.

If you’re a middle class wanker who hates south Bristol and would like Avonmouth to continue to be poisoned, you can vote for ‘Green’ Sandy in the Mayoral Election on 6 May 2020

ENERGY SHAMBLES

bristol-energy

As the Reverend launches his long, tedious re-election campaign with the comedy slogan “GETTING STUFF DONE”, devised by his tin-eared PR guru “Slo” Kev Slocombe, let’s take a look at what stuff the Rev’s got done with his energy reselling business Bristol Energy shall we?

The headline stuff is that he’s lost a load more of our money with the company announcing a  £10 MILLION OPERATING LOSS in the year to March 2019. Virtually identical to the £10 million loss he notched up last year! This brings total losses, so far, at Bristol Energy to about £34MILLION.

Our man in the energy business says it’s worth comparing the Reverend’s mess at Bristol Energy with Robin Hood Energy, the energy company wholly owned by Nottingham City Council. “Bristol Energy has 165,000 CUSTOMERS, a TURNOVER £76.2 MILLION and a GROSS MARGIN OF 7.3 PER CENT,” he says. “Meanwhile Robin Hood has 167,000 CUSTOMERS, a TURNOVER OF £70.3 MILLION and a GROSS MARGIN OF 7.2 PER CENT. So they’re broadly comparable.”

“But Robin Hood made an OPERATING PROFIT on these figures of £742,000. On the same turnover and customers, Bristol Energy made a thumping OPERATING LOSS of £10.1 million. Will the Reverend be asking hard questions as to why this is?”

“Does it have something to do with the 200 STAFF Bristol Energy employ for an identical customer base to Robin Hood who manage with just 99 STAFF? Or Bristol Energy’s wage bill of £7.23 MILLION while Robin Hood’s is just £3.31 MILLLION? Or the highest paid director at Bristol Energy pocketing £242,000 while Robin Hood’s scrapes by on £99,000?”

“Anyone who thinks that Bristol Energy can become profitable by 2021 only needs to study the 2019 accounts. Even if they doubled customers to 330k (highly unlikely) and made only modest increases in staffing/admin costs to support this customer growth they would STILL be loss making,”

These are the inconvenient facts. The Reverend may be able to spin his pet project as a success to a cabinet of clueless arselickers but the public requires a proper explanation for this LOSS-MAKING SHAMBLES overseen by a bunch of unaccountable MONEY GRUBBING SCROUNGERS.

I doubt we’ll get it





REVEREND’S HARA KIRI ELECTION PLAN

REVEREND'S HARA KIRI ELECTION PLAN

Is Bristol’s Labour Group at the council, led by the Reverend Rees, attempting to commit some weird form of RITUAL POLITICAL SUICIDE before the local elections next May? What other explanation is there for the STUPID DECISIONS and CRAZED OUTBURSTS emanating from the Reverend Mayor and his daft councillors?

The Reverend has already pissed off loads of communities throughout the city who are unlikely to vote for him or his party next year. These include WHITCHURCH where he’s proposed running a ring road through the community past a primary school; HOTWELLS, ASHTON and SOUTHVILLE where he wants to build his corporate high rise wet dream on their doorstep; STOKE BISHOP where he’s allowed their open space to be fenced off by Cotham School; TOTTERDOWN where his councillors voted through, contrary to the Local Plan, a hideous 15 storey tower block on the Bath Road; KNOWLE where he’s backed another tower block and WINDMILL HILL and BEDMINSTER where the Reverend’s been unable to get any grip on unruly private developers at Bedminster Green.

Then there’s the Reverend’s thicko cabinet sidekick, Kye “The” Dudd’s treatment of the FLY PROBLEM in Avonmouth. The Dudd has courted voters by variously accusing residents of planting dead flies to create a FAKE PROBLEM; blaming the flies on DOMESTIC WASTE left on St Andrews Road and, even, claiming there’s NO FLY PROBLEM and that fly levels in Avonmouth are the same as other areas of Bristol. A claim recently rubbished by the BBC who did their own tests for their ‘Inside Out West’ documentary slot.

Remarkably, things now seem to be TAKING A TURN FOR THE WORSE for Labour. At September’s Full Council, the Reverend, behaving like the last officer standing on a Pacific island as GIs storm the beach, raged about “SABOTAGE” by opposition councillors before burnishing his ANTI-UNION CREDENTIALS by refusing to allow his council to be involved in the Climate Strike on 20 September. The Reverend’s Labour colleague, Tom “Charming” Brooks, then PLUMBED FURTHER DEPTHS while responding to a petition from 3,979 voters calling for a moratorium on 5G rollout.

Rather than calmly quote scientific sources to rationally dispute the petitioners health claims, the Horfield councillor launched into a DEMENTED RANT instead. The petitioners were “naive people who had been taken in by MALICIOUS MISINFORMATION” and “conspiracy theorists fuelled by
fake news and misinformation” and were “PEDDLING PSEUDO-SCIENCE using technical sounding words to confuse people”. However, Brooks dismally failed to cite ANY EVIDENCE to support his insults. Instead, he argued, he was right because he had “the ability to Google and was also as an engineer working in risk and safety”.

Lib Dem, Green and, even, Tory councillors were much CANNIER and CALMER towards this large group of potential voters. Explaining they accepted Public Health England’s view on 5G for now but agreed the health situation should be monitored as the technology was rolled out.

That’s another 4,000 votes down the pan for Labour next May then

 

ST MARVIN’S-UP-THE-CREEK NEWSLETTER #23

I trust you all had an optimal summer and managed to get away to a few exotic locations on generous expenses, as I did, for some quiet prayer, reflection and contemplation and to help prepare for the trials and tribulations ahead identified by the parish’s senior leadership team at our recent ‘One Parish’ horizon scanning event. Have you, too, noticed how the dark winter evenings are beginning to descend upon our souls like a spectre haunting Europe?

As most of you are aware, my fixed term contract with the parish is up for renewal in May and, ridiculously, I will have to reapply for a job where I have consistently driven senior leadership excellence. While I know I can rely on most sensible parishioners to support me, I am aware that there are weak-minded waverers among you. But rest assured, any waverers are on Mr Slocombe’s special list and will be receiving a ‘comfort and reflection’ visit from my One Parish Encouragement Team in the coming weeks.

No doubt you are as disappointed as I am that some parishioners have decided to apply to be vicar themselves. I’m talking about Ms Page, already widely regarded in the parish as a socially and sexually deviant woman without husband whose lack of attendance at our cake sale events while brazenly attending local pubs to smoke cigars and talk about bridges with men is well known. And I’m talking about you, too, Mr Hore-Ruthven. Let’s face it, your role on the Parish Committee supposedly supporting young parishioners has, frankly, been a costly and disastrous failure and has led many ordinary parishioners to just point and laugh whenever you swagger past them trying to portray yourself as the only moral guardian in the parish.

I’m also led to believe that Mr Weston, the representative for small business and golfing matters on the Parish Committee, is after my job. Although I can’t help thinking his time and energy might be better spent on a serious weight loss programme. Then there’s Ms Townsend and her ragbag of troublemakers, terrorists and rumour mongers at the parish’s OFSTED ‘Needs Improvement’ Dave Spart Academy – now joined by rowdy elements from the Cumberland Basin, Stoke Bishop, Whitchurch and Hotwells – still attempting to undermine my leadership with Brexit campaign-like sabotage tactics.

They will not win, I shall prevail. My mentor, the Texan psychotic preacher and notorious anti-communist homophobe, the Pastor Righteous Loon’s letter from a Birmingham, Alabama whorehouse comes to mind at times like these :

“I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the stumbling block in our stride toward heaven on Earth is not the racist, the homophobe, the misogynist, the conservative or the free market liberal but the leftie troublemaker- often the schoolteacher, the local historian, the trade unionist or that annoying jackass who does something techie I don’t understand – who just doesn’t know when to shut up and do what they’re told by senior leaders.”

Fear not, together we will overcome and I will rise again unto a senior leadership role among you.

The Vicar