Friday Drivetime

5-7pm
Friday 1st March 2013
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

Bristol City Slackers March 2013: the MPs
Labour, Bristol South, Dawn Primarolo MP
Conservative, Bristol North-West, Charlotte Leslie MP
Conservative, Kingswood, Chris Skidmore MP

First Hour: News review with Labour Councillor for Southmead Jenny Smith. Influence of the owners on journalism at the Evening Post and discussion on the rights and wrongs of the bedroom tax.  Tony’s March 2013 list of City Slacker MPs (see above). What are these new ‘negative interest rates’ – rich people buying up assets;  massive cap on bankers bonuses announced; Muhammad Rafeeq, former bank of England employee on Britain’s plummeting financial reputation in the world; KPMG adviser to mayor Ferguson and present Competition Commission’s investigation into auditing fraud and price fixing – big companies and banks keeping several sets of books, looks like Big Four will be found to have been committing fraud and hoping nobody will notice; the Mayors first budge t has £35m of cuts. Britain’s AAA credit rating cut last Friday evening; MP for Filton and Bradley Stoke Jack Lopresti took a £6,600 trip to Saudi Arabia in December paid for by the Saudi government and reported by the TheyWorkForYou website and Private Eye but in a climate of illegal arms deals and considering his Filton connection with arms manufacturer BAe Systems what was he up to there? clip of Ed Miliband at PMQ discussing the New Statesman article by Anthony Seldon; clip of sharp former Labour leader John Smith at PMQs vs. John Major in 1993; Tiny number of multinational giants dominating the global food market.
[audio: 201303011700]
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Second Hour: Transport adviser to Bristol mayor George Ferguson & Bristol Friends of the Earth campaigner Pip Sheard quit but returned a week later as an adviser. She talks tonight about Bristol’s plagued bus rapid transit (BRT) system, cars, congestion charge, buses and trains. Pip is a volunteer on Bristol mayor George Ferguson’s advisory group for transport. She discusses the Bus Rapid Transit System, smart cards to get people on buses, the ‘bonkers bus stops’ etc. Round up of international news stories with Martin Summers: British secret services want to keep evidence secret at Alexander Litvinenko inquest delaying it by another six months, what have they got to hide? The book ‘Blowing up Russia’ offers clues to the possible motives behind the killing, to cover up false flag terrorism. 9/11 court case in Horsham with Tony Rooke, BBC TV documentary producer Mike Rudin in the frame under Section 15 of the UK Terrorism Act 2000, Article 3, for aiding and abbetting terrorism. A voxpop by Marina Morris, do people believe the story about the death of Osama Bin Laden in Abbotabad, Pakistan in May 2011? Discussion about who Osama Bin Laden was working for and when he really died. Nafeez Ahmed on the seven myths of the Iraq war as wrongly reported by BBC TV’s sinking ‘flagship’ Newsnight on the tenth anniversary of the war. British Foreign Secretary William Hague and new US Secretary of State John Kerry discuss Syria on Monday. Discussion of the Skull and Bones society at Yale University which John Kerry was initiated into in 1966, including a unique recording of screams and chant of ‘The Devil Equals Death’ at of one of their Skull and Bones initiation ceremonies. The 1974 Portuguese revolution, extract from this week’s Dialect interview with Enrique Ribiro. Interview with Victoria Brittain about her new book Shadow Lives: The Forgotten Women of the War On Terror.
[audio: 201303011800]
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