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: News review with Conservative councillor for Westbury-On-Trym Alistair Watson. Conservative party are the worst in Bristol: ‘Bristol City Slackers’ named or councillors that refuse to answer emails or phone calls. Proportion of ‘slackers’ by political party: Conservatives 36% (5/14), LibDems 28% (9/32), Labour 18% (4/22) & Green 0% (0/2). BBC royal correspondant Frank Gardener spills the beans on Radio 4 Today programme about pressure being put on David Blunkett to arrest Abu Hamza. Why is Elizabeth Saxe Coburg Gotha meddling in politics? Police officers are being appointed to senior roles without being properly vetted, it has been claimed following an investigation into a deputy chief constable who hanged himself after sexual harassment allegations. But local Police and Crime Commissioner candidate Bob Ashford was forced to step down from the race after minor crime at the age of 13. After Hillsborough revelations South Yorkshire Police turned a blind eye to sex grooming gangs for more than a decade, confidential files reveal, The school which employs teacher Jeremy Forrest, who has disappeared abroad with 15-year-old student Megan Stammers, was at the centre of a scandal just three years ago after a teacher was found to groomed two female students. LibDem leader Nick Clegg delivers keynote speech at his party conference. Marina Morris reports on the necessity of family and unconditional love in Britain today and asks what Bristolians think about modern family values. A 21-year-old man arrested at a flat in Pimlico, central London, has become the first person to be jailed under the government’s anti-squatting legislation.
[audio: 201209281700]

Second hour: Global roundup with Martin Summers: A Turkish court convicted 326 military officers, including the former air force and navy chiefs, of plotting to overthrow the nation’s Islamic-based government in 2003, in a case that has helped curtail the military’s hold on politics. A panel of three judges at the court on Istanbul’s outskirts initially sentenced former air force chief Ibrahim Firtina, former navy chief Ozden Ornek and former army commander Cetin Dogan to life imprisonment but later reduced the sentence to a 20-year jail term because the plot had been unsuccessful, state-run TRT television reported. The three were accused of masterminding the plot. The dramatic conclusion to the case was entirely unreported in the UK national press. Imam El Mahdi and Jesus will soon return to banish the curse of corruption & restore justice in the world: Iranian leader Mahmoud Ahmadinejad makes his final speech at the UN General Assembly as he finishes the second and last term as president. The Dark Art of ‘Conflict Initiation’: Patrick Clawson of the influential Zionist Washington Institute for Near East Studies openly suggests the US should provoke Iran into war. Just one in 50 victims of America’s deadly drone strikes in Pakistan are terrorists – while the rest are innocent civilians, a new report claimed today. The authoritative joint study, by Stanford and New York Universities, concludes that men, women and children are being terrorised by the operations ’24 hours-a-day’. And the authors lay much of the blame on the use of the ‘double-tap’ strike where a drone fires one missile – and then a second as rescuers try to drag victims from the rubble. One aid agency said they had a six-hour delay before going to the scene. 98% of Pakistan drone strikes are killing innocent people. A gross dereliction of duty: How Coalition defence cuts have left Britain terrifyingly vulnerable. Bristol land and housing co-op activist and editor of www.SpeakTruthToPower.net, Tony Crofts, discusses the acres of empty office space and compares it to Bristol’s appaling lack of housing. Discussion of how our society fails to deliver the right buildings & how office building owners can afford to leave them empty for years. Simon Bale from ISR, Churches for Work and Social Justice talks about the church is doing to address the growing social divide in Bristol and Britain, also discussing the strangely secretive process by which the new Archbishop of Canterbury is being chosen. One of the candidates was an oil industry executive until recently.
[audio: 201209281800]