Friday Drivetime

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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