Tag Archives: Public services

GREENBOLLOXNOMICS

Price drop

The Greens have published a long and boring 10 year economic plan for the city, ‘Fair, Green and Thriving: Bristol’s Economic Strategy 2025 – 2035’.

The council officer produced report mentions ‘business’ 178 times while lowly ‘public services’ are mentioned twice. If that doesn’t convince you this is a business charter from the Greens, then how about the 100 mentions of ‘growth’; the 32 mentions of corporate-coffer filling ‘net zero’ and 8 mentions for an unexplained ‘just transition’?

Looks like another right of centre coalition aligned to local business grifters has set up at the Council House to shovel public money to the private sector.

MORE BLOODY ‘GROWTH’
The Reverend’s meaningless buzzwords ‘inclusive growth’ are revived by the Greens in their economic plan. “We will grow our global reputation for innovation, creativity and sustainability [yawwwwn, Ed.] and attract investment aligned to our inclusive growth principles” they gush.

This ‘inclusive growth’ nonsense term appears a further eight times in their strategy. Nowhere do they explain what it is or how it differs from old-fashioned growth and its reliance on “trickle down theory”. The ridiculous belief that if the rich get richer the poor benefit by magic too. They don’t tell us what these ‘inclusive growth principles’ are, either.

The report rambles on, “[We will] use our role in the Bristol Temple Quarter LLP to support the implementation of the Bristol Temple Quarter Inclusive Growth Strategy.”

Naturally, there’s no such thing at present as the Bristol Temple Quarter Inclusive Growth Strategy. Although we’re promised, “[it] will be published in early 2025,” a date that has now passed.

It’s all a load of bollocks isn’t it?

FILM FLAM
“The health and social work sector is [Bristol’s] largest employer, providing 16% of local jobs in 2022,” say the Greens. Almost one in six workers in Bristol. This huge employment sector gets just  seven mentions in their economic strategy.

Meanwhile, an obsession with the film industry continues. ‘Film’ gets 17 mentions, although the Greens forget to say what percentage of local jobs their Hollywood dream actually delivers. Instead we get a tired old stat: “the Bottle Yard Studios contributed almost £21 million to the city’s economy”. £21m is a little over a tenth of one per cent of Bristol’s £15bn annual turnover.

Why the exposure and subsidies for a marginal industry while the sectors people actually work in get downplayed and underfunded?

DOWN SOUTH: After a  few crocodile tears about inequality in south Bristol, the Green economic plan announces nine ‘designated areas of growth’ for the city for the next ten years.

Seven of these are north of the river. Two – Bedminster and Brislington – are in the south. Bedminster is gentrifying fast while the selection of Brislington along the Bath Road looks like a sweetener to help get the greenbelt built on at Hicks Gate.

Little support from the Greens for South Bristol, then.

“MAKE BRISTOL SHIT AGAIN”

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.

RISE OF THE ANTI-MAYOR: MARVIN TO SACK 1,000 STAFF

Anti-Mayor? The Reverend Marv stands in front of an inverted cross in his council chamber as he starts to invert everything he promised and ever believed in.

Following the Reverend Rees’s laughable ‘First 100 Days‘ PR effort last week – where he revealed he’d done NOTHING except sit on his backside and appoint a few committees  – our hapless new mayor today announced he intends to immediately SACK 1,000 council staff to balance the books.

This will effectively spell THE END of functioning local public services like adult care, social services, and youth services and is the polar opposite of what the Reverend promised just three months ago in his ambitious manifesto.

One member of the Reverend’s pissed off staff has kindly summed up the truth of this ABSURD PLAN for us:

“Just had a prick of a manager come down to basically say: no overtime, no more temps, working weekends for basic rates etc etc  And all brought in by a cunt on a grand a day!”

Not much we can add to that.

The council’s unions, meanwhile, have come out with a pathetic response, proposing a USELESS four point plan that will make no difference whatsoever:

“Responding to today’s announcement by the council, the unions have come up with a four-point plan to stave off the worst effects of the planned cuts:

•Meaningful consultations on a plan to deliver quantifiable savings to deal with the current budget shortfall and future savings
•A review of the decisions behind the budget shortfall in the 2014-2017 period
•A review of consultancy, agency and casual contracts to ensure value for money from these contracts in future
•The mayor Marvin Rees to make representations to Whitehall on the state of local government finance and the impact on Bristol’s 450,000 population of these cuts.”

What will this achieve? “Representations to Whitehall” my arse.The Reverend Marvin and his union friends need to come out fighting. REJECT the cuts outright; REFUSE to put 1,000 Bristolians out of work and REFUSE to destroy our local services.

Tell Theresa May and her piss weak DIVIDED GOVERNMENT to stick their Tory cuts up their Tory arses; set a proper budget to deliver the services we need and invite the Tories to come to Bristol and try to stop us.

Let’s see if May’s poxy little shit stain of a failing government is strong enough to take on Bristol shall we?

Come on Marv. You’re not a yes-man pussy public sector bureaucrat any more. Time to be a politician. That’s what we elected you for.