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

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

First hour: News review with Labour Councillor for Cadbury Heath, Martin Farmer. Cuts to Cadbury Heath youth centre. Now only open 2 days a week. Chancellor & Bilderberger George Osborne’s Autumn Statement delivered in Winter due to ‘delays’. George Osborne and shadow chancellor Ed Balls spar in the Commons but Balls founders around making elementary mistakes such as whether the defecit has risen or fallen. Should the banks be nationalised? First ever freeze on benefits at 1% for the next three years. Lloyds and RBS already are nationalised. Ordinary people in Cadbury Heath don’t feel connected with manistream political parties. Martin Farmer explains how he tries to connect with people on local issues. ‘Sponsor A Scholar’ website set up preying on the poor & offering to pay tuition fees of students in exchange for sex & ‘escort’ work. Fake job adverts put up on government website & used to ‘harvest’ personal data of jobseekers including passports for ‘identity theft’. Again exploiting the poor. ITV documentary ‘Richard Madeley Meets The Squatters’ on prime time TV last night featuring Bristol squatters group Bham. Rights and wrongs of leaving buildings, particularly offices, empty and of squatting. Life of Hinkley B Nuclear power station near Bridgwater extended by seven years. Questions over whether extending beyond its design life is really safe or just trying to make money compromising safety. Leveson report, is there any chance of any truly ‘independent’ panel to oversee press regulation in Britain? Will Clifton victim of police & press lies, who was branded a murderer, be on the new ‘independent’ press complaints panel? Mr Jeffries is currently suing Avon & Somerset police press office for leaking his name to the press. If he wins the individuals involved don’t have to pay, the public do. David Hencke is awarded Political Journalist of the Year award this week criticises ‘Bonkers Logic of Life Of Brian Leveson’. Ofcom’s consumer panel was chosen by corporate headhunters Odgers and not truly representing the public. Will the press regulator be the same? Former child actor Ben Fellows describes systematic abuse of young people in the entertainment industry, being seduced by an older woman with the promise of an audition for Blue Peter, this woman now running a national children’s TV channel. Pictures of an advertising shoot circulated to paedophiles and police followed up with a prosecution. Pressure not to complain when sexual advances were made at auditions and punishment when he did complain from his acting school. Sexual abuse rife throughout the entertainment industry but not at the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC).  
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Second hour: Alan Goddard from the Wild Goose Cafe on Stapleton Road near Easton Swimming Pool & Leisure Centre where they now feed 500 people a day. More and more people are in need of their free food and Alan issues a stark warning that there is a drug epedemic working its way through society from dinsenchanted young addicts. Open from 10am-3pm for breakfast & lunch and 8-10pm for supper and they offer advice on careers, health and they help people with addiction problems. They also run a free ‘Food Bank’ at St Mark’s church in Easton. Growing problems in Bristol with drug abuse particularly vulnerable young people taking drugs because of peer pressure & apathy & this is storing up big problems for the future so Alan does a lot of work in schools around the city. The Wild Goose gets no funding from Bristol City Council because of all the strings attached so the centre is funded entirely by voluntary donations. Pros and cons of legalising drugs: alchohol and tobacco are both dangerous drugs but they are legal, some other drugs are legal. Ordinary cannabis has been replaced by super-strength ‘Skunk’ which can virtually knock people out. New Bank of England governor, Mark Carney,  is from the same company, Goldman Sachs, that caused the financial crisis in 2008! He is also part of a secret elite club called the Bilderberg Group which was founded in the 1950s by SS officer and Nazi party member Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands who was forced to resign as Bilderberg chairman in 1975 as part of the ‘Lockheed corruption scandal’. President Morsi in Egypt decides he wants to be immune from the Egyptian courts and so sparks further rioting as the people don’t want him to be ‘king’. Morsi’s opponents have had enough of the Muslim Brotherhood, burning down their headquarters. English language Iranian Channel Press TV is banned in the UK by Ofcom, this week Gordon Duff looks ahead to Imran Kahn’s possible victory next year in Pakistan wondering if he can stop the constant US drone killings by the US. In Afghanstan the US, with the aid of Britain and NATO have contructed a $80 billion drug empire, every boy over 12 has a gun so every boy is a ‘militant’ and the US/NATO can kill them. President of the Federation of African Journalists and boss of the Somali Journalists’ Union, Omar Faruk Osman explains that journalism is the most dangerous profession in Africa with 15 journalists being killed in the last year. Somalia is the most dangerous country in Africa with a culture of ‘impunity’ where killers know they will not face justice and a journalist’s life is worth only $50. Foreign countries using Somalia as their ‘political football’ and problems with ‘pirates’ originating from hidden agendas outside the country, from US/NATO again.
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