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: PCS union votes to fund anti-cuts candidates at the next general election. Attila the Stockbroker sings his recent song, ‘Looters’. Libor rate is the key rate in all financial transaction right across the globe. Barclays’ former Chief Executive Bob Diamond appears at the Treasury Select Committee. Co-founder in 1981 of Bristol based investment & stockbroking bank Hargreaves Lansdown is interviewed on BBC Radio Bristol. But former forces broadcaster John Darble fails to challenge Peter Hargreaves on why his ‘zombie firm’ is kept alive on public subsidy or the question of the morning, whether he thinks bankers should be locked up? The City of London and Wall Street investment banking parasite is devouring the public and society, its host. The banks can not be allowed to fail but neither can society, which is the highest political priority? Unemployment in EU now highest since the introduction of the Euro. Youth unemployment at 22.6% but an astronomical 52% of under 25s in Spain & Greece are now unemployed. It was the 2008 public bailout that kept his company going. Marina Morris looks at sexual abuse in state run children’s ‘care’ homes. Voxpop this week asks who is to blame for unemployment and what should be done about it. Defiance against debt bullies & locking up criminal bankers wins Iceland’s president Grimsson a record fifth term. News review with National Vice President of Public and Commercial Services Union (PCS) John McInally.
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Second hour: Denials from Israel but it looks likely now that Palestinian leader and Nobel Peace Prize winner Yasser Arafat was assassinated in 2004 was ordered by the Israeli cabinet using Polonium, a radioactive poison. Paraguay and Iran’s Straits of Hormuz. Hilary Clinton, acting as a ventriloquist’s dummy for AIPAC & Jerusalem, issues the same sort of bullying threats used by Hitler in the run-up to World War Two. Potential now for the Middle East to turn into a charnal house at any time, as illustrated by the downing of a Turkish Phantom jet in Syrian airspace two weeks ago. President Assad has proved in the recent referendum that he does have popular support in Syria. Any spark could set off a major war in the Middle East but the British Army is being slashed to its smallest size since the Napoleonic wars. Seventh anniversary of the 7/7 London bombings. Peter Power of Visor Consultants conducted an exercise on the day of 7/7 at the ‘same three tube stations’ that the bombs went off. The drill was conducted for former organisers of one of the world’s biggest arms fairs, DSEi in docklands, Reed Elsevier. Jerusalem desk of Associated Press reported that a warning of the attacks was given to Benjamin Netanyahu (Bibi) via the Israeli Embassy in London by Scotland Yard before the bombings took place. Kevin Cahill, author of Who Owns The World, tells us that 65% of British people own their own homes which, Kevin says, is the highest number in history. Political parties are petrified that homeowners get together they can if you’re working and paying your tax, for example the government should insure you against losing your job! Britain is still a feudal nation and only two countries grant land to their citizens in their constitution; Russia and one in South America. Obscene annual CAP payments of around £500k to Britain’s super rich whose ‘Rich List’ wealth is as follows: Duke of Buccleuch £2bn; Duke of Westminster £7bn; Prince Charles £1bn; The Queen £7bn. The Queen is the largest landowner in the world with 6.6bn acres. One sixth of the entire surface of the earth. David Powell Economics Campaigner from Friends of the Earth. Land grabbing going on today with mass evictions. 200m hectares of land over the last decade, 100 times the size of Wales, has been bought up in Africa and Asia over the last decade. New book on the subject is Land Grabbers, The New Fight Over Who Owns The Earth. £9bn of pension funds are investing in land grabbing the new, economic, colonialism.  
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