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: Pupil premium and student loans, LibDem education policy. News review with Liberal Democrat Councillor John Kiely. Should LibDem leader Nick Clegg be replaced by Business Secretary Vince Cable? LibDems are the only democratic political party, Labour is run by the trade unions and the Conservatives run by rich donors. Control by Germany on September 12th which is D-Day for latest Euro bailout scheme as German court decides on legality. Germany, with new globetrotting military, also take over presidency of UN Security Council for September tonight! Prospects for a financial crash and collapse and can bought politicians do anything to get us out of the debt spiral? Crisis of leadership as Western world is run by lightweights. UN & aid agencies criticise Glencore boss who claims ‘world food crisis is good for business.’ Deregulation of commodities futures markets by Wall Street has turned essential world markets such as food and energy into a giant casino. Cargill decided long ago to destroy agriculture in the developing world. Wall Street Pentagon Complex use control of food markets to intimidate smaller countries when making geostrategic decisions at the UN. Charitable giving, Volunteering, Quality of Life, Indifference and is Britain de-politicised? Britain makes homeless squatters into criminals for the first time in history tonight. Police will now be doing private landlords’ jobs, saving them money in the civil courts. Bristol has 15,000 official plus another 5,000 unofficial homeless people and this will only add to the housing crisis with people likely, as in the US, to be forced to live in tents. Criminalising squatting with hundreds of thousands of homeless people and similar number of empty properties could lead to a serious social crisis and even civil war. Class War from the top down: Jobless young will have to work for three months unpaid to get their benefits as government accused of ‘slave labour’. North Somerset Conservative MP Liam Fox is advising far-right US Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s team.
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Second hour: The Tax Justice Network Roadshow comes to Bristol. But will Prime Minister David Cameron do anything to close tax haven loopholes when his father Ian Cameron was a pinoneer of them when Margaret Thatcher’s government abolished Exchange Controls in the 1980s? However, Britain is in a unique position to do so as many are British protectorates or ex colonies such as The Cayman Islands and Bermuda. Current economic policy is taking us back to the Victorian age of ‘them and us’. Are British forces already in Syria as William Hague makes statement at the UN in New York? RAF personnel told not to book leave, on standby for an air attack in Syria. Who is responsible for this conflict and where is it heading? US Soldiers form anarchist Maryland Militia with $90k worth of assault rifles. Richard Cottrell on his new book ‘Gladio, NATO’s Dagger at the Heart of Europe, The Pentagon-Nazi-Mafia Terror Axis’. “Journalism is dead” he says, in the UK, as the mainstream press parrots the government line on mass deception without criticism, classic Orwellian ‘groupthink’. Old Labour Oxford Economist Martin Summers returns after his August break.
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