Month: March 2012

BCfm’s weekly politics show presented by Tony Gosling

At five: discussing the big stories in Bristol, Britain and around the world
After six: straight talking and investigative reports with Martin Summers and Marina Morris

For all the shows back to Easter 2009 visit the Friday Drivetime archive page.

First hour: Embarassment for Ed Miliband and Labour as Respect MP George Galloway romps home in Bradford West By-Election. Are three main political parties really just three wings of a single party state controlled by the City? How is the new Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority MP’s expenses system working? Avon & Somerset Chief Constable Colin Port gives evidence at the Leveson Enquiry but does anyone believe him when he says his force did not leak Chris Jefferies’ name to the national media? Appaling treatment of Mr Jefferies by Avon & Somerset police. Leaks and off-the-record briefing lies fairly common by the police who know they will suffer no personal consequences. If Avon and Somerset police did not leak Chris Jefferies’ name to the press then who did? Faults with the quasi-judicial ‘media circus’ Leveson enquiry process which has replaced judicial public enquirys. A fiscally neutral millionaire’s budget: Martin Summers’ 2012 Osborne budget report. Cash For Access lobbying: Conservative party treasurer Peter Cruddas resigns after being secretly filmed offering systematic access to top government figures for large sums of money. David Cameron promises enquiry into “the next big scandal waiting to happen” lobbyists in December then changes his mind by the end of January. Squatters who shelter in empty homes to be imprisoned for a year or pay a fine of £5,000 as homelessness is criminalised for the first time in British history. News review with Labour MP for Bristol East Kerry McCarthy & LibDem MP for Bristol West Stephen Williams.
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Second hour: Former Bristol Respect candidate Paulette North on today’s by-election victory for her party in Bradford West. George Galloway beats the ‘sad old’ Labour party as the community is being “cut to ribbons”. Gerrymandering on the cards to shut Galloway type candidates out of the political system. Sunday’s Bristol Against The Arms Trade anti-drones conference and Monday & Tuesday’s pro-drones conference taking place in Bristol. Breaking a mainstream media taboo: Luton, Bedfordshire free party sound system & Community activist Glenn Jenkins with marshal arts practitioner & engineeer Gerry Coulter discuss evidenced corrupt practices of freemasons. Luton Labour party leader Roy Davies discovered to be a liar and a freemason. Look at the blood-curdling initiation rites of the masonic third degree, extracts from the 1999 HTV documentary ‘Rites and Wrongs’ about Gloucestershire freemasons. Police bullying Jerry. Masonic corruption in the planning system specifically C. G. Fry & Sons who were exposed by BBC Southern Eye in 2000. The same firm are now building Prince Charles’ massive Poundbury estate West of Dorchester. www.DorsetPolice.tv www.HMcourts-service.com www. MinistryOfJustice.tv Author of Inside The Brotherhood Martin Short uncovering criminal networks in local government & the police. Cotswold District Council LibDem Councillor Esmund Jenkins exposes £700,000 fraud at 85 acre Keynes Country Park and is then persecuted with £60,000 of public money by officials at the ‘Standards Board’. Presume nothing, some councils are being run by corrupt public officials for the benefit of the few and not in the public interest. Developer Dennis Grant took over Keynes Country Park on 114 year long lease for peppercorn £1/year lease and was subsequently convicted of £700k fraud and jailed for 4 years. The real secret is the power of communities to winkle out these criminals and expose them to the light of publicity and justice.
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BCfm’s weekly politics show presented by Tony Gosling

At five: discussing the big stories in Bristol, Britain and around the world
After six: straight talking and investigative reports with Martin Summers and Marina Morris

For all the shows back to Easter 2009 visit the Friday Drivetime archive page.

First hour: May’s referendum for elected mayor or keeping cabinet system what’s the difference? How, for example, would an elected mayor effect transport? Privatisation of National Health Service a step too far? Private Finance Initiative building Southmead hospital and other projects under former Labour government. South Gloucestershire council votes to reject cabinet system as elitist in favour of return to the old committee system. Ministry of Defence in talks with Serco, Babcock International, Deloitte, KPMG, Bechtel Group, Fluor Corp. & BAE Systems considering privatisation of Filton Abbey Wood procurement centre. NM Rothschild & sons get Prime Minister David Cameron to propose privatisation of British trunk roads and motorway network. What was Roosevelt’s 1930s ‘New Deal’ which lifted world economy out of an economic liquidity trap? 2012 budget: higher rate of tax was cut from 50p to 45p, Winston Churchill’s pensioners allowance hit and fuel prices will increase by 3p. Why does Iraqi oil cost $1.50 a barrel (170 litres) to get out of the ground and over 200 times more at the pump? Answer is the market is dominated by speculators. Financial crisis began in 2008 when Labour were in power. Criminalising squatting as part of Legal Aid bill considered this week in the House of Lords. After massacre of 16 Afghan civilians by drunken US soldiers, over 400 British soldiers dead and 40,000 Taliban. Avon and Somerset Chief Constable Colin Port to appear next Tuesday at the Leveson enquiry in London, questions likely to be asked about how newspapers got the name of Christopher Jefferies in Joanna Yeates murder case. Police Federation conduct ballot, seeking right to strike. News review with Cllr for Bedminster Colin Smith (Lab).
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Second hour: Discussion about this week’s Toulouse assassinations, seige and subsequent killing of Algerian origin terror suspect Mohamed Merah. Views of former Senior Intelligence Analyst at South Yorkshire Police Tony Farrell. Questions over whether the suspect was really an Islamic fundamentalist when his latest girlfriend did not wear a headscarf and he was a drinker and nightclubber. Dead men tell no tales. Similarities to NATO Intelligence Operation Gladio, a secret far-right army which murdered civilians then blamed killings on their political opponents. French intelligence services following him for several years so how did he get an arsenal of firearms? Was he in fact a ‘patsy’ serving a political purpose to highten and exaggerate the overall terror threat, possibly also affecting May’s French presidential election to increase the pro-Sarkozy DGSE security state vote. Syria civil war continues and Economic warfare as Iran is cut out of the SWIFT banking transfer system, world news roundup with former LA narcotics detective Mike Ruppert. What will NHS privatisation mean for Britain’s healthcare? Which US private healthcare companies secretly lobbied, SpinWatch ask, for this change? Is it justified economically? Southmead hospital Consultant Anaesthetist Dr Sean Hopson is considering standing for political office on the basis of reversing changes to the NHS.
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BCfm’s weekly politics show presented by Tony Gosling

At five: discussing the big stories in Bristol, Britain and around the world
After six: straight talking and investigative reports with Martin Summers and Marina Morris

For all the shows back to Easter 2009 visit the Friday Drivetime archive page.

This popular show is still available here

First hour: Mayor referendum and police commissioner election taking place this May but are either going to be good for Bristol or for democracy? Does anybody really want it? Councillors are ‘corporate parents’ for over 700 children in Bristol City Council care. What is the role of a local authority? Bristol has a turnover of £1bn anually. Are LibDems just propping up a Tory government with no voice at all? Debt write-down in Greece but Greece still unable to meet financial targets. We are no nearer to solving the financial crisis despite nearly two years of the coalition government they are still blaming the previous Labour government. Main regulation is 1989 capital requirement for banks which means now they can not lend. Casino style investment banking. Profits in investment banking are preying on the real financial sector such as the Avon County Council pension fund. Greg Smith resignation letter from Goldman Sachs calling his former employers ‘muppets’. Goldman Sachs not actually mupets but much more devious. Harriet Harman faces Nick Clegg at Prime Minister’s Questions on the topic of the privatisation of the National Health Service in a few days time. Jeremy Corbyn asks about private rent regulations, private landlords raking it in. Child protection or child theft? Marina Morris looks at secret family court system which takes children off their parents but doesn’t look at the rights or needs of the parents. News review with political economist Polly Winch and LibDem Councillor for Bishopston, Dr. David Willingham.
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Second hour: The Battle For Arnhem – A Bridge Not Far – recent revelations that show Field Marshal Montgomery’s Operation Market Garden, in September 1944, aimed at severing German supply lines on the Western Front should have worked. It was early morning in Holland on Sunday 17th September 1944 and as the gliders and paratroopers poured down along a sixty mile corridor to hold the bridges. The furthest bridge from the front line at Arnhem became the focus of attention as and the biggest airborne operation in history unfolded. Was it really ‘A Bridge Too Far’ as the title of Cornelius Ryan’s book and Robert E. Levine’s famous film imply? Or could the tanks and ground troops of XXX corps have gotten through to relieve the surrounded British paratroopers? With Arnhem only 10 kilometres, a 30 minute drive away and a virtually clear road ahead – General Horrocks’ M4 Sherman tanks inexplicably halted for 17 hours. By the time the tanks started rolling at lunchtime the next day British paratroopers had run out of ammunition, been forced to surrender and German Panzer 5 & Tiger tank reinforcements had arrived to block the way. The Nijmegen bridgehead was established around 19:00hrs, 3 hours later, at 22:00hrs that evening the British were forced to surrender at the Arnhem bridge. So paratroopers of the 1st Airborne division at Arnhem bridge may have been relieved in the nick of time and war in Europe could have been over six months earlier, by Christmas 1944. We look at Cornelius Ryan’s book ‘A Bridge Too Far’ as well as Joseph E. Levine’s film of the same name. Interviews with: Captain T. Moffatt Burriss, author of ‘Strike and Hold’ who was commander of i-company, 504th regiment, 82nd Airborne division during the legendary Waal river crossing; Robert Kershaw author of ‘It Never Snows In September’ who interviewed 10th SS Panzer Division Brigadeführer Heinz Harmel, commander of the German defence of the Nijmegen and Arnhem bridges; Major Tony Hibbert who was a senior officer of 2nd batallion 1st brigade, British 1st Airborne division at the Arnhem bridge; Tim Lynch author of ‘Operation Market Garden: The Legend of the Waal Crossing’; Sir Brian Urquhart, army intelligence officer in the run-up to the operation he was critical of it and transferred before it began… but later became Secretary General of the newly formed United Nations.
There’ll be a special ‘new Betuwe scenario’ event at noon on Saturday 17th March at Cut And Thrust Wargames on Old Market.
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