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: Former Mayor of Bristol, Libdem Councillor for Knowle Chris Davies did not arrive as arranged for this week’s news review. However Robin Clapp from Bristol And District Anti Cuts Alliance (BADACA) did, and he explains how he has been involved in social struggles in Bristol including the miners’ strike in the 1980s and the anti poll tax campaign in the 1990s. Big companies sitting on £750bn of potential tax. Is the private sector really able to take over & run public services? Do we have a Coalition government or have the Tory government entirely sidelined the Liberal Democrats? The new Bristol mayor will be able to run the city with only 20% of elected councillors supporting them but what will the various mayoral candidates do about the closure of Bristol’s care homes? Bristol has a higher proportion of drug addicts, over 1400, claiming benefits that any other city in the UK. Bristol City Slackers, councillors representing thousands of people that do not return emails or phone calls including, worryingly, the LibDem candidate for Avon & Somerset Police and Crime Commissioner and Horfield councillor Pete Levy. Naomi fowler presents an extract from July Taxcast, a monthly podcast from the Tax Justice Network. Emergency Homelessness is up 25% in the last three years. Bristol City Council to close all its eight elderly care homes over the next three years while keeping one dementia home open, Bristol’s mayoral candidates disagree on the solution.
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Second hour: Syria and Iran latest. Free Syrian Army (FSA) get surface to air missiles. We hear two extracts from the Iranian English language channel Press TV which is now banned in Britain by broadcasting regulator Ofcom. We hear that US corporations buy elected politicians by spending $15bn on lobbying in the run-up to the US Presidential election later this year and Gordon Duff from Veterans Today’s view that the Patriot Act has echoes of Nazi Germany and that Republican candidate Mitt Romney represents war profiteers, not just the Republican party. Daphne Havercroft – from South West Whistleblowers’ Health Action Group (SWWHAG) – consolidation and commercialisation of the NHS as plans are revealed to merge the 2 NHS trusts to one that. This time it was the UHB NHS Trust managers and board who failed to appear on the show to discuss reasons for the merger and the future of their £500m annual budget of public money. David Powell from Friends of the Earth (FOE) discusses Fracking, the extraction of gas by pouring toxic chemicals deep into the water table which energy companies are planning to do in the Mendip Hills. This has been going on in the US for a decade where they have produced a film: Gasland. Forthcoming protest on Saturday 22nd September called Global Frackdown, Frack Free Somerset and the national Frack Off campaign as well as the film: Fracking Hell. Wind farms and fossil fuel vs. alternative energy policy. Joanne Baker, author of Uranium in Iraq: The Poisonous Legacy of the Iraq Wars talks about Hiroshima Day on Monday as well as Britain’s use of radioactive waste to pollute countries in foreign wars. Fran Anderson from Reinvestigate 911 reflects on the 9/11 Commission report, Without Precedent: The Inside Story of the 9/11 Commission by Thomas Keane, BBC coverage of the 9/11 attacks and the thoughts of US author of Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace and writer Gore Vidal who died this week, aged 86.
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