Month: April 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: This week’s news review with Labour Councillor for St. George West Ron Stone: Britain officially enters recession after five quarters of zero growth. Should we have a major programme of public works like we did in the 1940s and ’50s? Is Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne representing vested interests and ‘braving it out’? Prime Minister David Cameron was in Bristol on Monday promoting the Yes campaign in next week’s mayoral referendum. Is Bristol in fact a very sucessful city which doesn’t need a mayor? How would an elected mayor affect the Bristol tram, the arena or the city ground decisions? Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne at Temple Quarter to launch ‘Enterprise zone’ on Friday. Bristol North Baths was closed 7 years ago by Bristol City Council after a dubious public consultation but has been re-occupied by local people in it’s centenary year. Justin and the Recession Bristol project are restoring the baths for free and providing free skills training and security. Lack of capital money from the council to look after and restore such buildings so they just rot and are snapped up cheap by the ‘private sector’. Old Grammar School next to St George Park has been brought back into community use. Groups paying peppercorn rents to the council then restoring and reusing public buildings. 2012 St Paul’s Carnival is called off over safety fears and as community groups disagree. This is the latest of several cultural events to be cancelled including the Ashton Court festival, but the Harbour Festival will go ahead. Leader of Bristol City Council Barbara Janke is to stand down, we speculate on whether she has been ‘elbowed out’ because she does not support the pro-mayor wing of her party… and ask who might take her place. Thousands of people taken off of Incapacity Benefit and told by local Lord Rothermere owned paper, The Post, to ‘get back to work’, but there are not enough jobs on offer. Cuts in benefits are ‘crashing the economy’. Respect MP for Bradford West George Galloway criticises the present leadership of the Labour party for losing touch with its roots. Social cleansing: Newham council in London proposes to move 500 families 150 miles North to live in the much cheaper town of Stoke. We hear the views of Housing Minister Grant Shapps and mayor of Newham council Sir Robin Wales. Boris Johnston and Ken Livingston have both said this is ‘social cleansing’. We spend most of our money throughout our lives on our housing. 14,534 people are on Bristol’s housing waiting list. Borrowing on Bristol’s housing revenue account is over £70m. Ron Stone wants to get pension funds to invest in social housing. Bristol’s council rents going up 8.1% this year. James and Rupert Murdoch appear at the Leveson enquiry and we hear about damning email “Managed to get some info on the plans for tomorrow. (Although absolutely illegal >:)” Back channel between Secretary of State for Culture Media and Sport Jeremy Hunt and News International. “Total impartiality and strict due process.” but can anybody have any confidence in Jeremy Hunt’s trustworthiness and are his acions illegal? Conservative MP for North-East Somerset Jacob Rees-Mogg also has an email which casts Vince Cable in a bad light. Compulsory microchips to be introduced to curb the menace of dangerous dogs. But our guest Ron Stone is a Crufts dog show judge and says it will not help at all.
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Second hour: This week’s world politics reconnaissance: Secret rulers of the Western world NATO far-right elitists founded by an SS officer and censored by the BBC due to meet on 31st May 2012. The Bilderberg Conference looks to be taking place in four weeks just down the road from the CIA headquaters in Chantilly, Virginia, USA. Royalty, top bankers, media moguls, big business and favoured politicians will be in attendance. Press will not be allowed near the place. BBC trustee Marcus Agius who is also charman of Barclays bank is a ‘Bilderberger’. Expect an announcement about the US presidential race in the week after Bilderberg. Anders Behring Breivik who killed 77 people in Norwegian terror attack using the term ‘counter-jihad’ rather than Zionism which is what he really supports. Oslo based UN worker Torstein Viddal’s taboo breaking article which suggests Breivick is part of a much wider Zionist racist network which is linked to Nazism. Breivik visited the UK to meet a founder member of the English Defence League (EDL) and others back in 2002. Who was pulling Breivik’s strings and why are Norwegian prosecuters trying to pretend he had no accomplices? Bahrain Grand Prix goes ahead despite fascist repression of Bahrain regime, Channel 4 news team arrested and their driver beaten. Bahrain is a crucial strategic port for a potential NATO attack on Iran. Is Formula One too close to fascism bearing in mind that former F1 chief, and regular guest on BBC Question Time, Max Mosley stood in Salford East for the Union Movement, post-war successor to his father’s British Union of Fascists, in the 1964 General Election? What is discredited Scotland Yard Anti-terror cop John Yates up to helping an arab dictatorship? France’s presidential candidates Francois Hollande versus Nicolas Sarkozy but The Economist magazine, which represents corrupt City interests, would vote Sarkozy. Gloucester born ‘extremist’ Saajid Badat met Osama Bin Laden. But is that such a big deal? Much terrorism is perpetrated by Patsies, Moles and Technicians as part of Western intelligence operations so he may well have been a patsy. National Health Service worker Mike Levine from Bristol and District Anti Cuts Alliance (BADACA) explains how the NHS is being privatised. Mike points out the problems with Foundation Trusts being too much like commercial businesses and has produced a pamphlet called ‘The Privatisation of the NHS, It Can Be Stopped If People Know What Is Happening’ Next week is traditional workers’ day Mayday and Mike talks about next Saturday’s ‘March For The NHS’ through Bristol City Centre starting at College Green at 11am. Next week’s mayoral referendum with former Sainsburys’ Home Delivery manager turned council officer and prospective mayoral Peace Party candidate Craig Clarke who doesn’t want a rich person to be mayor. Are we being bumped into this by central government? What will the powers of an elected mayor be? Mayor will be able to wade in to council bureaucracy and bang heads together. Craig recounts a conversation with Conservative Lord Mayor Peter Abraham where he was offered free labour which he turned down, then told Craig, ‘You should be a bit more selfish’. Craig found this frustrating as he doesn’t think people in the council should be selfish at all. According to Craig the inner circle of Bristol City Council’s officers are the ones who control Legal Services, Finance and Money. The only way to stop a rich person being mayor of Bristol is to vote that way. Craig hopes to stand for the Peace Party if Bristol votes ‘Yes’ next week. Julian Parry gives us more detail on his Rolling Referendum. Political parties funded from taxation but all voters allowed to switch their contribution to whichever party they wish at any time either online or by post. When ministers put forwad bad policies their funds would go to their political rivals. If government were to get less than 20% of total funding queen would dissolve parliament and call another general election. Julian and his friends’ policy to get away from the present elective dictatorship, a proposal being put to Lord Monkton of UKIP.

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: Rich already paying a lot of tax, public transport showcase bus route and the bonkers bus stops, Quantitative Easing, the depressing effect on our savings and what to do about it explained by the BBC’s Dominic Laurie. What we will have to do to reboot the economy. British banks are bust but nobody wants to admit it. Norwegian mass killer Anders Behring Breivik who is on trial this week met EDL financier and political controller Alan Lake, according to the “founding father” of the EDL, Paul Ray, on his own blog. Lord Ahmed announces a ‘bounty’ in Pakistan for the capture of George W. Bush but article may have been mistranslated and he was comparing Bush and Blair’s role in illegal wars and the necessity to arrest them. Who is the man Theresa May wants to deport Abu Qatada and what has he done? Bristol Respect and NUJ protest as Bristol Evening Post sacks 20 journalists for their 80th birthday and imaginatively changes name to ‘The Post’. One of the first untruths you will read when you open a copy of The new Post is “The Paper All Bristol Called For And Helped To Create” – because the opposite is the case. ‘The Post’ paper we see in Bristol today is owned by Northcliffe which is part of Lord Rothermere’s Daily Mail empire. The Bristol Evening Post was set up in 1932 by public subscription in an appeal led by the Bishop of Malmesbury. It was formed as an independent Bristol owned paper precisely to compete with the Northcliffe paper of its day, The Evening World, which it eventually out-sold. Shares in the original 1932 Bristol Evening Post were gradually bought up by Lord Rothermere’s son in the 1970s and by the 1980s he began to demand places on the board and took the Bristol Evening Post back under Rothermere control. But that was only after one of the Bristol owners and Managing Director, Walter Hawkins had died. Walter’s wife Joan Hawkins is still alive and lives at Alveston in Gloucestershire. She explains how the character of the paper has changed since shares are bought up and it was re-taken over in the 1980s by Rothermere’s Northcliffe newspapers. £730m personal fortune Lord Rothermere’s Daily Mail supported the Nazis in the 1930s, along with many of Britain’s German royalty such as Edward VIII. They changed their name from Saxe-Coburg-Gotha to Windsor during the first World War. George Galloway MP returns to the House of Commons with question about the Afghanistan war at Prime Minister’s Questions. Labour leader Ed Miliband asks Prime Minister David Cameron about the proposed cap on charitable donations and the effect a reduction of £500m will have on the government’s Big Society policy. Bristol architect George Ferguson declares his wish to stand for Mayor later in the year but The Post do not mention that he is a member of Bristol’s financial elite with roots in the slave trade, the Society of Merchant Venturers. If we vote yes in the forthcoming mayoral referendum will it lead to a kind of a dictatorship in the city? Should Bristol City Council be run as a business as some councillors, presumably Tory, believe? News review with Cllr. Tim Leaman (LibDem)

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Second hour: Julian Assange launches new international affairs show The World Tomorrow on English Language TV channel Russia Today. Political conspiracy in the fall of left wing Chinese politbureau member Bo Xilai, former secretary of the Communist Party in Chongqing. Kevin Philips from the Avon & Somerset Police Federation who are going to ballot over the right to strike in the face of the biggest attempt to change their pay and conditions for thirty years. 16,000 nationally or 700 local police officers in Avon & Somerset look set to lose their jobs. If these cuts go ahead will Britain become a paramilitary police state? What with all the changes to the education system what is this meaning for young mums? Difficulties of getting toddlers into local schools in inner city Bristol. Claire Humphries is here from Local Schools for Local Children to share with us the dilemmas of the modern mum. West Indian former Avon and Somerset police officer turned driving instructor Phil Mattis has written a book about the state of the family in 21st Century Bristol British Families Under Labour: And Lessons Learnt, he joins me to explain why he left the police and what prompted him to write the book.

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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: Are Conservatives still the party of business aspiration? Will Britain be insulated from the Eurozone crsis? Prime Minister Cameron promised no top down reorganisation of the NHS before the election but it is now happening. Jack Lopresti MP is a freemason but is freemasonry a secret society or not? Jack promises Tony a tour of Bristol freemasons hall and a copy of the Bristol masonic year book. Questioning masonic oaths and whether they are compatible with public office. BAe Systems’ plans to close Filton airfield and build housing over it plus some new jobs in Jack’s Filton and Bradley Stoke constituency. Will big engineering firms such as GKN, Rolls Royce & Airbus be forced to close or move away when the runway closes? Derivatives market is a house of cards, with possibly a financial crash in the months to come. Evening Post bombshell, around 20 jobs to go as well as Saturday edition and Venue print edition. Bristol Evening Post to change its name to ‘The Post’. May’s Bristol mayoral referendum hustings held today on College Green. People of Bradford wanted a big hitter batting for them, discussing the political fallout of George Galloway win for Respect in Bradford West. George described as a ‘rock star’. Teacher Anne Lemon from Clevedon School reports back from the annual NUT conference held this year in Torquay. Teachers are nervous about big business ‘buying up’ our education system through Academy Schools which the local authorities do not control. Private schools now getting state ‘Academy’ funding and wealthy parents don’t have to pay the school fees. Prime Minister David Cameron takes a trip to the Far East, including Indonesia, with British businessmen but who are the arms firms selling arms to? Should we have private arms firms who make money out of selling weapons and starting wars? Disgraced Metropolitan Police Assistant Commissioner John Yates is now helping dictators put down demonstrations in Bahrain. Christopher Booker in the Daily Mail: 90,000 children now ‘in care’ and annual number being taken into care tops 10,000. 50% of prostitutes, 80% of Big Issue sellers, 50% of those in Young Offenders’ institutions and 26% of adults in prison have been through the state ‘care’ system. Plymouth resident and former nurse Melissa Franklin who is about to give birth tells her story of being harassed by social services in Bristol. Bristol is ‘bottom of the list’ for Queen’s Diamond Jubilee party applications by Evening Post reports that we are ‘in the party spirit’. BBC’s Paul Mason discusses the media ‘pyramid’ and how social media such as Twitter and Facebook has changed things. News review with MP for Filton & Bradley Stoke Jack Lopresti.
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Second hour: Ben Griffin served for 8 years in the Parachute Regiment and the SAS: Veterans For Peace committed to resisting war by non-violent means was launched on Easter Monday in London. Ben injuncted not to speak publicly but said what he wanted to about the criminal ‘Extraordinary Rendition’ programme before the High Court injunction was served on him. Jim Radford from Merchant Navy discussed & the Army Rumour Service forum ARRSE is where soldiers speak their minds. Are Afghanistan soldiers dying for a lost cause? Doubts about present conflicts among soldiers and officers. Campaigning for US soldier being prosecuted for the Wikileaks Bradley Manning. The gradual sell-off of British infrastructure into private hands: Royal Mail stamp price goes up 30% in the final stage of privatisation. Kevin Beazer, South West Regional Secretary for the Communication Workers’ Union (CWU). What will be the effect of the pensions holiday on posties and the public Royal Mail is privatised? Why does the CWU support the Labour Party financially when Labour began the privatisation of Royal Mail? Dirty Cash (1990) by The Adventures of Stevie V. The strange extradition case of possible ‘patsy’, Haroon Rashid Aswat who was in touch with the alleged London Bombers in 2005 but he is potentially being extradited to the United States, former FBI special prosecutor John Loftus says Aswat was an MI6 double agent. Was alleged Toulouse terrorist Mohammed Merah an informer for French Intelligence? – if it wasn’t him then who did kill the Jewish children and Rabbi in Toulouse? NATO intelligence’s Gladio and Ergenekon networks explain it all. US Presidential candidate Mitt Romney is an old 1970s chum of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Friends of the Earth Economics Campaigner David Powell’s environmental futures: government’s proposed Green Investment Bank to launch soon but it may not be allowed to borrow or lend!
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