Tag Archives: Western Daily Press

PANTO HORSE GATE: WILL PINOCCHIOWEN BE THREATENING TO SUE THE ‘WESTERN DAILY PRESS’ OR G.M.B. UNION NEXT?

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BEOFPantoHorseGateWith HorseWorld’s senior management so concerned about public criticism of its decisions – decisions, it should be noted, that have cost the charity a lot of its money, and which currently threaten the livelihoods of dozens of hard-working staff – will it be widening its innovative ‘economic growth through legal threats’ strategy beyond The BRISTOLIAN and a student rag?

And if so, where does that leave Rowena Hayward, the GMB union official now representing around half of HorseWorld’s staff, whose letter published in the Western Daily Press on Saturday 15 February contains some stinging implied criticism of how the Pinocchiowen regime has managed the crisis at HorseWorld? Will she too be on the receiving end of a poorly drafted screed from Burges Salmon’s latest work experience? And how about Tim Dixon, the editor of the Bumpkinshire Post?

Will the threats ever end?

Union’s concerns over HorseWorld

The GMB is extremely concerned about the recent announcement from HorseWorld Trust with its intention to make 27* staff redundant out of a total of 56 workers. It does seem “odd” when it is closing its visitor centre, getting rid of two of its marketing, media staff and volunteer co-ordinator which actually enable the public to come along and help boost the trust’s coffers, to promote the work of the trust and ensure a proper volunteer structure is in place.

The trust has been running at a loss over the last five years or so leading to a net loss over that period of £2 million. Surely this can’t be down to bad management as, according to HorseWorld’s own website there are a number of very successful businessmen on the trust’s board.

The questions the GMB are asking include:

  • Why were HorseWorld accounts in deficit over the last five years?
  • What financial recovery plan is in place during the past five years?
  • How much is paid to the chief executive and the senior management team? Many of the 24 workers facing redundancy are on the minimum wage or just above
  • How much is the trust likely to save by making staff redundant, closing the visitor centre and leaving the buildings boarded up to go into disrepair?
  • The visitor accounts used to be kept separate. In 2012 this was changed and all areas of HorseWorld’s accounts were put together – why?
  • How does senior management and trustees propose to recoup income lost from the closures?
  • HorseWorld claims the only reason for the redundancy of just under 50 per cent of its staff is the rejection by Bath and North East Council of its plan to build houses on the existing visitor centre site and to seek planning permission to build a bigger visitor centre on green belt land. Yet as the charity has lost some £2 million in the last five years, the financial problems cannot be attributed solely to one decision by the local council.
  • If the board of trustees and the managing director are unable to run the trust with the current financial constraints, how will they be able to manage it in the future?
  • The GMB is unsure if some of the legacies left to the trust stipulate the land currently used by the visitor centred was bequeathed to the ‘horses’ rather than for domestic property usage.

The GMB is urging the public and supporters of HorseWorld to ask these questions and more to ascertain why 24 dedicated workers are being forced into redundancy.

The GMB is calling on the board of trustees to call a halt to this process until these questions are answered.

Rowena Hayward
Membership development officer, GMB

* We understand from contacting Ms Hayward that this first figure is a typo and that it should read ‘24’ – the most up-to-date number of jobs under threat.

‘THE BRISTOLIAN’ – READY FOR ROUND 4

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After a break of nearly 3 years it’s time for more smiting…

READ ALL ABAHT IT!Over the years, whenever the stench of corruption, lies and thievery of Bristol’s wealthy and powerful became so sickening that something had to be done, a paper called The BRISTOLIAN has appeared to shine a light on the shadowy back room deals.

Once again, that time has come. Investigative journalism has almost disappeared from print in Bristol as newspaper cartels have bought up all the independent press. The Evening Post and Western Daily Press are a sad joke, now just tools for moulding public opinion in the interests of big business. We are left with internet conspiracy theorists who need to get out more, or kow-towing journalists who write stories off the web from posh cafés in Clifton. Meanwhile, the rich avoid paying tax, flaunt their stolen wealth and are laughing into their caviar as their political allies in the City Council slash public spending for the young, the old and the disabled.

It’s a Bristol that James Acland would have recognised a hundred and eighty-six years ago. It was then, in 1827, that the radical journalist Acland launched the West Country’s first daily newspaper. He called it The BRISTOLIAN. Undercutting the advertising rates of existing weekly papers, conducting a lively letter column and breaking the law by publishing at one and a half pence without paying the newspaper stamp tax, Acland’s publication was a muck-raking popular radical paper for the working classes. The paper concentrated on exposing the abuses both of the unreformed Corporation which ran Bristol and of the Courts, and was spiced up with demands for an overhaul of the national political system. Acland was imprisoned in 1829 but not before he had fanned the flames of popular revolt. Two years later, in 1831, the city exploded with the Reform Act riots which frightened the undemocratic wealthy elite targeted by the rioters and helped bring the vote to Britain.

Fast forward nearly two centuries, and bent, rich bastards were still running the show in Bristol. To counter this a ‘new’  BRISTOLIAN was launched in 2001 as a scandal sheet offering “independent news from Bristol that the other papers won’t touch”. Distributed for free in the bars and pubs of Bristol, it soon proved a vital conduit for whistleblowers across the city to spill the beans on corruption, mismanagement and stupidity, whether in the council, the private sector or the quangos. Readers were hungry for it, and circulation ratcheted up to more than 10,000 per week.

In 2003, the success of The BRISTOLIAN paper led to the Bristolian Party, which stood in the local elections in an attempt to mobilise widespread discontent with Bristol City Council’s policies. On election day a total of 2,560 people voted for the Bristolian Party, gaining an 8% share of the vote within the 12 wards it contested. In 2005 The BRISTOLIAN was runner-up for the Paul Foot Award for investigative journalism, though not long after it ceased publication, only to be relaunched in 2008-10.

So that’s three separate versions of The BRISTOLIAN, all with the same purpose. Well, The BRISTOLIAN is fighting fit and ready for round four. So rich bastards and corrupt politicians beware, because we are back and we smell your blood….

The Committee for Public Safety