Disqus - Latest Comments for thebristolblogger

Re: ‘Bristol transport is in crisis and people are already paying with their lives’

thebristolblogger — Wed, 15 Aug 2018 04:43:44 -0000

What is the source of the claim "half of Bristol car journeys are under 2km"? The link goes to a commuter survey from 2013 that doesn't mention distance traveled and isn't a survey of all car journeys anyway.

Re: 'A mayor for the many, not the few' | News | Bristol 24/7

thebristolblogger — Wed, 28 Jun 2017 14:15:11 -0000

People who “live their lives on social media” aren't any kind of problem to anyone outside of this city's political class's bubble of strange obsessions.

People who command high five-figure and six-figure salaries to competently run our public services with integrity, fuck them all up and then get handed six-figure hush money sums by a gullible mayor are far more of a problem to ordinary people trying to get by.

£3.5million in pay-offs to 'the few' high-paid bosses who ran up and hid a £30million deficit while wrecking local services and the mayor targets 'the many' local residents on social media for criticism? He's lost the plot.

Re: 'Strong, safe and not mad' | News | Bristol 24/7

thebristolblogger — Thu, 08 Jun 2017 15:54:11 -0000

The author of this article is an idiot.

Re: Bristol 24/7 - News and Features | News | Politics | Bristol City Council budget passes

thebristolblogger — Wed, 22 Feb 2017 07:39:28 -0000

The proposal was for £112 milion of cuts. Around £80 million were made. This deficit was hidden from us.

Re: Bristol 24/7 - Opinion | Your say | Arts | 'Calls to change name of Colston Hall are misguided'

thebristolblogger — Mon, 20 Feb 2017 13:50:55 -0000

The article suggests that the people who want to change the Colston Hall's name are "turning a blind eye" to FGM, forced marriage, honour-based violence and other unnamed "extremely regressive practices among some cultures in the UK"

Got any evidence for this nonsense Mark?

Re: Bristol 24/7 - Opinion | Your say | Society | 'For young people, the outlook is dismal'

thebristolblogger — Wed, 15 Feb 2017 12:54:46 -0000

So raising the 'wrong' subject now makes you racist? The term, in your hands, no longer has any useful meaning beyond signalling you're a massive snob.

Your little economic theory demonstrates your free market fundamentalism btw. There's scant evidence that current immigration policy increases the size of the economy in any useful or significant way beyond benefiting rentiers.

Growth rates are where they were 50 years ago when immigration was regulated through a policy of full employment rather than through your dazzling free market free-for-all. However, 50 years ago, research shows real wages were growing, housing was cheaper and inequality falling (take note kids!).

Re: Bristol 24/7 - Opinion | Your say | Society | 'For young people, the outlook is dismal'

thebristolblogger — Tue, 14 Feb 2017 16:44:29 -0000

Keith hasn't said anything racist so why are smug white people on here screaming "racist" at him?

Keith's two observations are economically sound. An increase in labour supply will lead to a fall/stagnation in the price of labour and a tougher labour market; an increase in demand for housing will lead to an increase in the price of housing. If that's racist, then just about every economics text book ever published is racist.

Stop trying to silence anyone who criticises your extremist free market economic beliefs by crying racism. It's bullshit.

I don't think any of this "serves young people right", btw.

Re: Bristol 24/7 - News and Features | News | Politics | Anti-Trump protest: take three

thebristolblogger — Fri, 03 Feb 2017 21:36:37 -0000

And Donald's pussy grabbing moment was twelve years ago. Shall we forget about that then too?

Re: Bristol 24/7 - News and Features | News | Politics | Anti-Trump protest: take three

thebristolblogger — Fri, 03 Feb 2017 10:32:40 -0000

"The whole of the community" might also like to know that Stand Up To Racism is viewed as a Socialist Workers Party (SWP) front.

And the SWP are best known these days for their own pussy grabbing moment - covering up a rape complaint and harassing the woman involved:

http://www.progressonline.o...

Re: Bristol 24/7 - Opinion | Your say | Politics | "Lazy complacency" harms multiculturalism

thebristolblogger — Tue, 31 Jan 2017 13:06:31 -0000

Remarkable. A comment on the indiscriminate use of tasering that
doesn't criticise the local police responsible once while shoehorning in a series of
condemnations of Trump 6,000 miles away.

Lazy complacency indeed.

Re: Bristol 24/7 - News and Features | News | Politics | 'I'm not pleased and not unpleased'

thebristolblogger — Tue, 10 Jan 2017 14:43:00 -0000

People are certainly "feeling disempowered by the political process" Marvin offers. Over 500 local people have now objected to his plan to run a road through Victoria Park after he ran a three month public consultation nobody knew about.

Re: Bristol 24/7 - News and Features | News | Green Capital 2015 | The final report into Bristol Green Capital

thebristolblogger — Mon, 09 Jan 2017 13:41:32 -0000

The report has not "exonerated the city council and Ferguson" outside the pages of the Bristol Post.

Ferguson was slammed for having a conflict of interest as both Mayor (and head of BCC) and a director of Bristol 2015 Ltd in a "private capacity":

"In my view, few people would be able to distinguish between the Mayor’s public and private roles in serving on the Board of a company created by the Council, to which he had originally been appointed by the Council as Chair, deriving most of its income from the Council and contracting with it to fulfill a public purpose. In future, if the Mayor is to serve on the Board of a similar body there must be greater clarity about his role." 25, p 14

Nicola Yates is similarly criticised for her dual roles as BCC Chief Exec and Bristol 2015 Ltd Chief Exec:

"I recommend that for the future, the same careful consideration proposed above in respect of the role of the Mayor should extend to the role of the Council’s principal adviser." 28 p. 14

Bristol 2015 Ltd, meanwhile, has been slammed for flouting local government transparency regulations:

"If there was room for doubt, the nature of the accountability demands that Bristol 2015 Ltd would be subject to, despite its arms-length status, should have been made clearer to all concerned at an earlier stage. For future arrangements of this kind I recommend that the letter of appointment of company directors should specify their responsibilities in this respect." 33, p. 17

And for deliberately trying avoid its FoI obligations:

"one of the explicit benefits, from the Council’s perspective, of establishing the Company was that it would be free from obligations under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOI) “given commercial sensitivities”. In my view, the avoidance of FOI responsibilities can never be a legitimate objective of a public body, in this instance not least because the Act allows commercially sensitive information to be withheld from publication." 35, p. 18

Re: Bristol 24/7 - News and Features | News | Transport | 'New cycle path through Victoria Park is a win-win'

thebristolblogger — Thu, 05 Jan 2017 16:09:31 -0000

The claim that VPAG "have been co-opted by a fundamentally anti-cycling group" is plain crackers and a lie. Why believe anything else these liars say?

The scheme is a load of shit and the community are up in arms about it. Hundreds have recorded their objections to it.

Re: Bristol 24/7 - Opinion | Your say | Politics | 'The election of Trump could be a good thing'

thebristolblogger — Tue, 03 Jan 2017 13:07:27 -0000

Fake news?

Google this phrase attributed to Trump: "I always thought it sounded stupid, what does it mean? But when I said it people loved it, so I kept on saying it."

It comes up with nothing about Trump.

Re: Bristol 24/7 - Opinion | Your say | Environment | 'Why Bristol stands out as a sustainable city'

thebristolblogger — Tue, 20 Dec 2016 18:51:38 -0000

Nottingham's Robin Hood Energy is owned by the council, which was the first local authority to do this. This article is not accurate.

Re: Bristol 24/7 - Culture | Art | News | An old statue, a new statue and tiny statues

thebristolblogger — Thu, 17 Nov 2016 06:59:06 -0000

Just because something happened to be effectively decriminalised 300 hundred years ago doesn't equate it to be being morally or ethically acceptable at that time. St Wulfstan drove the slave trade (largely to Ireland) out of Bristol in the 11th Century as un-Christian. Who decided to bring it back? How and why?

Why is there an observable moral equivalance - broadly based on basic western Christian values - between the 11th Century and now but not the 17th Century?

Sources on Colston can be found here:

https://counteringcolston.w...

And here:

http://www.brh.org.uk/site/...

Re: Bristol 24/7 - Culture | Art | News | An old statue, a new statue and tiny statues

thebristolblogger — Mon, 14 Nov 2016 15:01:24 -0000

Colston owned the boats and employed the people who loaded the slaves into them. He even innovated in the industry by lowering the headroom in the holds so he could fit more slaves in. Do you really blame the sailors and absolve Colston of responsibility for this because he didn't turn up on the west coast of Africa to load slaves on to his boats at gunpoint?

Do you blame the people who work on oil rigs for the oil industry and people who work in armaments factories for the arms industry rather than the execs and owners making the money? If you do, it's an unorthodox view.

Towards the end of Colston's tenure - in 1698 - as Deputy Governor of the RAC (equivalent to CEO today as the Governor was a ceremonial position) the RAC's monopoly was broken and the market in slaves opened to competition. This was OK for Colston as he was already a member of Bristol's Merchant Venturers so he was perfectly positioned to take advantage of the new market conditions.

So yes, the RAC went into slow decline after this but Colston had already profited significantly from the monopoly for 26 years and then positioned himself (and the Venturers) to profit again. It really is that simple if you follow the facts.

Maybe the reason why there's four church services in two weeks to celebrate Colston in this city as well as that obscene statue is that he made the Merchant Venturers lots and lots of money by opening up the slave trade to them and helping them exploit the opportunities? And money talks.

In a city where 22 per cent of kids are raised in poverty, it is laughable to say, "everyone who lives in Bristol today has to accept that they share in a prosperity that was largely based on slavery". What prosperity is this? Where is it?

The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade was nothing to do with any Bristolians except those ruthlessly exploited by the Colston and the Venturers as
sailors and workers on their vessels and in Colston's sugar refinery in Bristol. Are we meant to feel ashamed and apologise for being exploited by the rich and powerful now?

It's nice that your great aunt thought a rabidly anti-Catholic, anti-non-conformist Christian fundamentalist chucking a bit of cash at poor people prepared to be physically and ideologically disciplined into strict religious observance excused Colston's genocidal business practices.

But do all Bristolians really understand Colston if a number of the wealthy ones and the local clergy celebrate him in church four times in two weeks? Perhaps Bristol should have a Jimmy Saville day and get the Bishop in to do a sermon or two? After all, Saville raised loads of money for charity as well as raping children. Shouldn't his charitable work be publicly celebrated too?

Re: Bristol 24/7 - Culture | Art | News | An old statue, a new statue and tiny statues

thebristolblogger — Fri, 11 Nov 2016 11:09:16 -0000

Then you've not looked far. It's very well documented that Colston set up his own business in 1672 trading in cloth, wine, sugar and slaves.

In 1680 he joined the Royal African Company, which ran the UK slave trade, and rose to become a senior partner and deputy governor. These are executive positions, not those of a silent shareholding.

He's directly implicated in the transporting of 100,000 slaves and the deaths of around 20,000.

Re: Bristol 24/7 - News and Features | News | Politics | Are these people about to change Bristol for good?

thebristolblogger — Thu, 29 Sep 2016 14:30:32 -0000

75 local public sector, business and charity bosses in one room? Lock
the door, throw away the key and our city's likely to function a lot
better ...

Re: Bristol 24/7 - News and Features | News | Politics | Video: Marvin Rees confronts cuts protest

thebristolblogger — Wed, 14 Sep 2016 16:21:39 -0000

So it's "tactically smart" to sacrifice 1,000 jobs at random in our local public services and then visit Westminster afterwards with a
couple of overpaid public sector chief execs to moan about it and get ignored?

What classifies as tactically inept among Harvard leadership graduates these days?

Re: Bristol 24/7 - Opinion | Your say | Politics | 'Labour trying to blame predecessors over cuts'

thebristolblogger — Mon, 12 Sep 2016 14:40:25 -0000

Anyone got any idea what services Rees is actually cutting? Or is he just going to let 1,000 random staff leave on 30 September and try to carry on as before?

Re: Bristol 24/7 - News and Features | News | Politics | Rees refuses to commit on Prince Street Bridge

thebristolblogger — Fri, 09 Sep 2016 07:18:29 -0000

Nonsense. He's very keen to make 1,000 of his staff redundant in the most heartless and shambolic manner possible.

Re: Bristol 24/7 - News and Features | News | Politics | Exclusive: Labour councillor suspended

thebristolblogger — Fri, 09 Sep 2016 03:22:33 -0000

Councillors are irrelevant. The mayor holds all the power and councillors are consistently unable to hold them to account or scrutinise their actions adequately.

Re: Bristol 24/7 - Opinion | Your say | Politics | Rees needs to walk the walk over transparency

thebristolblogger — Tue, 06 Sep 2016 02:38:44 -0000

The law, or rather the Accounts and Audit (Amendment no 2) (England) Regulations 2009, actually requires local authorities to publish the salaries, allowances, bonuses, compensation and employer's pension contributions paid to each employee who earns over £50,000.

Yates' £200k pay-off comes under the category of 'compensation'. We are therefore being told the exact opposite of the truth.

Re: Bristol 24/7 - Opinion | Your say | Politics | 'Bristol needs to re-imagine who culture is for'

thebristolblogger — Sat, 03 Sep 2016 08:09:45 -0000

A lot of hot air. No financial commitment beyond the millions in handouts already agreed in July to the usual wealthy cultural institutions of Bristol West. I wonder how Estella thinks her unfunded, unexplained 'culture' will help the one thousand families likely to suffer when she instigates 1,000 ill-thought out redundancies at her council?

Perhaps she could hand out a free copy of DH Lawrence with every compromise agreement?