Friday 1st May 2015

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

Listen live http://www.bcfmradio.com/player

First hour: General election discussion on the economy, jailing bankers, 9/11 and the ‘war on terror’. Labour Kerry McCarthy; Lib Dem Mark Wright; Green Justin Quinnell; Chairman of Bristol UKIP Steve Wood; the Conservative party declined to participate. What is your vision for Britain and why should people vote for you?: gap between rich and poor; bedroom tax; fairness; rebalancing of economy where rich pay more;  deficit and debt;  environmental responsibility;  tax; social justice; equality; growth; EU. Referendum on EU – Britain in or out? Trade regulations; reform and negotiation; Council of Ministers; positive laws from EU; Common Agricultural Policy. Banks were bailed out with £750bn – are parties for arresting top bankers? What happened to Andrew Tyrie MP’s Treasury select committee decision to separate high street banks from casino banks? Austerity. ‘All pain for no gain; in the 6th richest country in world as national debt doubles in five years; Glass-Steagall Act in the US separated casino and main street banks; regulation; big four auditors ‘all in it together’; bankers bonus cap; Serious Fraud Office failing to do they’re job and prosecute; fines are just pennies to banks and individuals responsible are not punished; ‘too big to jail’. British national debt has almost doubled to £1.5trn since 2010 election; cancelling debt; Keynesianism. Clip of Richard Gage from ‘Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth’, discussing controlled demolition of twin towers and building 7, subsequent war on terror, homeland security, growing police state, the after-effects of 9/11:  Iraq war; Afghanistan war; Trident; vote on action in Syria; action in Libya; dodgy dossier; ISIS and Al Qaeda; oil.
download pages
BCfm audio file
Radio4all audio file

Second hour: General election discussion on legal aid cuts, secret societies, freemasonry, Bristol’s £200m Metrobus ‘experiment’ and the Westminster/Whitehall child sexual abuse scandals: Cuts to legal aid and legal advice since 2010:  employment tribunal fees far too expensive; number of cases plummet, lawyers finding it harder to make a living; everyone should be equal under the law; domestic violence. Should candidates declare their Freemason membership like any other business interest? Is freemasonry a religious cult? Do police have to declare their masonic membership? UKIP’s Bristol chairman Steve Wood is a Freemason and takes us through the extensive charity work of the group. Freemason’s lodges being used by organised crime to penetrate the government and criminal justice system. What about Masonic oaths and rituals of initiation? Do you get a hangman’s noose round your neck and a dagger point pressed to your bare chest when you join? Steve can’t tell us. Is there too much surveillance and is NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden a hero or a traitor? Secret services out of control; failure of Intelligence and Security Committee chair Sir Malcolm Rifkind to hold secret services to account; GCHQ, MI5, MI6 need to do job in secret; they must obtain a court order before putting someone under surveillance? Breaking the criminal law if they don’t. Will the crown prosecute these ‘crown services’? Illegal to spy on confidential communications between lawyers and their clients; illegal spying on MPs and journalists; Are CCTV cameras a waste of money? Report after report shows CCTV fails to cut crime; scrutiny; human rights issues. Is Bristol’s Metrobus ‘guided bus’ scheme a good idea? Problems other places such as Cambridge and Luton have had with a guided bus system; Tim Phillips from ‘Cast Iron’ campaign, about delays and engineering problems in Cambridge; Bristol transport generally. Child abuse: high society cover up;  Leon Brittan, Greville Janner, Cyril Smith; if you do the crime, do the time; Child sex abuse: Watchdog to investigate Metropolitan police over ‘cover-up’ claims involving MPs and officers. Child sexual abuse used for political blackmail; Bloody Sunday inquiry dragging on for decades; Theresa May failing to get child sexual abuse inquiry going; very similar to the Dutroux scandal in Belgium and the Franklin scandal in the United States; gang grooming. Are candidates pro more council housing? Evictions have doubled since 2010; bedroom tax; law changed in 2011 so builders have no social housing requirement; rent capping.
Investigative reports: Maidan Massacre
download pages
BCfm audio file
Radio4all audio file

Friday 24th April 2015

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

Listen live http://www.bcfmradio.com/player

First hour: Local election debate – BCfm Politics Show part 1 – Conservative on George Ferguson’s cabinet Geoff Gollop, Labour group leader Helen Holland, Liberal Democrats group leader Gary Hopkins, Green councillor Tim Malnick, and UKIP councillor Michael Frost.  What are the parties’ visions and priorities for Bristol? Transport, residents parking, education, academies, libraries, austerity/cuts, local communities, scrutiny of policy making, transport, jobs, homes, cost of living crisis, living wage city. Has bringing in a Mayor been a success? And is having all councillors’ elections at the same time a good idea? Residents parking scheme, Bristol Arena, lack of democracy, selling off freehold of Avonmouth docks.  Clip of Dawn Parry, from Independents for Bristol, explaining some of her ideas for Bristol: MP job share, Bristol Peoples Bus, housing. Quiz question for councillors – how many police officers have Avon & Somerset Police lost since 2010? Answer 600 which is about 20% of the force: UKIP councillor guessed closest at 500 response times have got worse, austerity, less PCSOs too.
download pages
BCfm audio file
Radio4all audio file

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BILj4RFyBnY]

Second hour now available 🙂

Second hour: Local election debate – BCfm Politics Show part 2 – Is The West of England Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP) @WofEnglandLEP as open and accountable as it should be? Its board is selected by the Confederation of British Industry (CBI), Institute of Directors (IoD), Federation of Small Businesses (FSB), and Business West – business has the loudest voice spending tens(?) of millions of public money but meetings are held in secret – they should be accountable; sell off of Weston-Super-Mare Winter Gardens for a £1 to Weston college with help from a grant from the LEP but this what arguably should have been multi million pound asset transfer takes the Winter Gardens out of local authority control; article in the Bristol Post which fails to mention the criticism from Weston’s Civic Society nor the facts that the sell-off was carried out with no consultation and £15m granted by the secretive LEP to one of the LEP’s partners, Weston college. Should be more representatives from community and social and voluntary sector. Has immigration squeezed or supported local resources? Ed Miliband’s comments today about David Cameron’s Libya failings being partly responsible for tens of thousands of desperate migrants coming across the Mediterranean; similarity to forced migration in late 1800s from Ireland and Scotland to the United States. Tony Blair’s 2003 Iraq war and dodgy dossier also helped create chaos in the region; Is Bristol a City of Sanctuary for asylum seekers? Is migrant labour undercutting wages? Living wage vs the minimum wage; long term foreign policy – complexity dealing with different countries; diplomats; more social housing. Food security – clip of Derek Mead, North Somerset Farmer, explaining how Britain should be more food self-sufficient, and price cutting in super markets: fishing; local suppliers; people have visited food banks a million times this year. Bristol City Council spends around £370m of our money a year: some towards Metrobus £200m and Arena £110m; Michael Frost complains that the eviction of tree protesters at Stapleton Allotments should have happened much earlier and this would have saved the council money in the long term. He was informed of this by a UKIP colleague here in Bristol who he declines to name but has professional expertise in evictions. Jobs; Colston Hall; parking; scrutiny of funding.
download pages
Where BCfm audio file should have been
Radio4all audio file

Friday 17th April 2015

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

Listen live http://www.bcfmradio.com/player

First hour: News review with Cllrs Hibaq Jama (Labour), Christian Martin (Liberal Democrats) and Martin Fodor (Conservatives): Why should you vote? Differences between Lib Dems and Tories; Greens membership highest in Bristol and rising, nationally 60,000; Avon and Somerset police – cuts, 600 less officers than five years ago say the Avon & Somerset Police Federation, Labour would scrap Avon & Somerset Police and Crime Commissioner which costs £3,000,000 annually; traffic congestion in Bristol has improved – public transport, residents parking, road works; £200m Metrobus – will it make a difference? £13m to fix pot holes; Tory ‘right to buy’ plan for housing association tenants – radical individualism – housing crisis, more council housing needed; Bristol Arena – to cost in excess of £110m, inequality; migrant boat capsizes off Libya killing 400 refugees – oil in Middle East, Britain’s destabilisation of Iraq, Libya and Syria leading to the growth of ISIS, western intervention in Middle East; is mass economic migration bringing down pay and conditions? Refugees and economic migrants; Germany insists everyone who applies for a job must be able to speak read and write German. Interview with Derek Mead from new North Somerset First Independents party, standing in the elections – North Somerset Council and Weston-Super-Mare Council involved in corruption of selling off large public properties such as College and Winter Gardens for £1 – says his party will clean up politics; NHS financial problems – big hole in finances – privatisation.
download pages
BCfm audio file
Radio4all audio file

Second hour: investigative reports: Ole Dammegard, author of book ‘Coup D’etat in Slow Motion’ on the assassination of Swedish Prime Minister Olof Palme. He discusses conspiracies behind the assassination of Prime Minister of Sweden, Olof Palme, in 1986: Gladio Network in Sweden; motives for killing Olof who was about to visit Moscow; Iran Contra; Sweden, Bilderberg and NATO; Swedish Wallenberg family: Jacob Wallenberg Bilderberg connections, likes to have maximum money and power with minimum visibility; recent terrorist attack in Denmark; false flags;  Bilderberg Meeting 2014. Ukraine: Interview with Alison Cahn, who was a researcher on documentary ‘Death on the Rock’, considered the last vestiges of proper investigative journalism: rise of conspiracy theories because death of proper journalism – questioning, can I prove this wrong?; journalism today; citizen journalism.  Interview with Ian Henshall, author of ‘9/11: The New Evidence’: involvement of Saudi Arabia; Israel; CIA protecting hijackers from arrest; Bin Laden family; military exercises on the day.
download pages
BCfm audio file
Radio4all audio file

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x7MBqTw2vl0&w=420&h=315]