Author: politicsthisweek

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: Non story of the week: RBS fined disappointing £380m over Libor, no directors arrested or jailed. News review with Conservative Councillor for Westbury-On-Trym and Deputy Mayor of Bristol Geoff Gollop. Mayor George Ferguson’s three ‘volunteer’ budget advisers: Matt Payne from financial services firm KPMG which signed off accounts of bankrupt banks pre 2008 & is being investigated for fraud by the Competition Commission, Sean Cater from privatised utility firm Wessex Water & Malachy Reynolds from bankrupt chocolate firm Elizabeth Shaw. Privatised ‘Work Programme’ providers fraudulently pushing benefit claimants into self-employment to get 5 figure bonuses and reduce jobless figures. You can download the podcast of this BBC Radio 5 Live programme. Will Osborne’s bedroom tax add more to social security bill? Yes says Channel 4 News. Ed Miliband tackles Cameron at PMQs. Findus lasagne products made from 100% horse meat – France, Poland and Ireland appear to be responsible and this lie not picked up in the UK but in Ireland. Recessions compared by the National Institute for Economic and Social Affairs (NIESR): In May 2011 it became clear this is worst recession for at least a century, 5 years into the 1930s depression growth was 7% higher than 2008 to now; no recovery until 2018 warns NIESR; Iraq war activists to get £4000 compensation over 2003 protest; Metropolitan police behaving like UK Stasi: dead children’s identities used by Scotland Yard police for undercover infiltration of lawful political groups.
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Second hour: investigative reports – Financial crimes: click on this to read Paul Manning’s book on the Fourth Reich Mafia Finance Network – Round up of international news stories with Martin Summers: trouble between Japan and China; corruption of the Spanish Prime Minister Rajoy being paid from the secret slush funds of private developers; Russian military conscription is being introduced for all new young migrants. Campaign for Accountability of American Bases (CAAB) February 2013 newsletter is just out and contains much to be concerned about including a list of RAF bases which contain only one or two, or ZERO RAF personnel: RAF Croughton 1, RAF Fairford 0, RAF Welford 0, RAF Barford St John 0, Blenheim Crescent 0, RAF Lakenheath 1, RAF Feltwell 0, RAF Menwith Hill 3. RAF Mildenhall 4, RAF Alconbury 1, RAF Molesworth 2. Figures revealed in answer to a parliamentary question by Conservative MP for Rayleigh and Wickford, Mark Francois. Link to the indomitable CAAB website. Interview with Daphne Havercroft from South West Whistleblowers’ Health Action Group (SWWHAG) concerning recent deaths at Mid-Staffordshire Hospital and systemic failings of the NHS. ‘Business’ mentality at the top of Bristol NHS questioned: Bristol UHB Trust chaired by Merchant Venturer John Savage and UHB Trust chaired by Peter Rillet, also a Merchant Venturer. Mike Birkin from South West Friends of the Earth discusses Centrica’s pulling out of the UK Nuclear Power programme and Cumbrian nuclear waste site refused planning permission. What does this mean for the prospects of new nuclear at Hinkley Point? In 1973 Mike attended a lecture by William Sargant, author of the book ‘The Battle For The Mind’ and was impressed with his analysis of cults such as voodoo and how they use rituals to alter members’ thinking. Transfer of these techniques to tell people what to think in the global political arena through the mass media. Journalist and writer for the Guardian and New Statesman Dan Glazebrook on this week’s assassination in Tunisia and the way the so-called Arab Spring is playing out as a fight between Chinese and NATO interests in harvesting the continent’s resources. Dan gives his opinion on who will win this colonial military and economic conflict as it plays out, and why.
[audio: 201302081800]
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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: Difference between Debt and Deficit explained as UK Deficit begins to grow again. News review with LibDem Councillor for Knowle Gary Hopkins. Iceland’s president Grimmson vindicated for refusing to pay debts and arresting bankers. Britain’s deficit is getting worse as well as debt growing so what is the difference between Debt and Deficit? The government borrowed more than expected in November, Office for National Statistics data shows, reducing the chance that the government will meet its 2012/13 deficit reduction goal. Introduction from guest Gary Hopkins. Discussion about the new Bristol cabinet which is mostly LibDems so what has changed? News stories – Mayor George Ferguson has cancelled Speedwell Pool; new crisis loans from local government; who are George Ferguson’s three advisers from KPMG and how much are they paid and where do their loyalties lie? Is the mayor a dictator? Does George know KPMG are under investigation for fraud by the competition commission; Office of Fair Trading report says there is no petrol price fixing by the oil cartels – 2/3 fuel cost is tax, Libor style fixing of wholesale oil prices, geo-political games; BBC’s Stephanie Flanders interviews Chief Executive of Goldman Sachs Lloyd Blankfein at the World Economic Forum in Davos in Switzerland; clip of Ólafur Ragnar Grímsson, President of Iceland, about why Iceland’s economy is flourishing after his judges arrested and jailed bankers; clip of at PMQ about UKs debt going up despite austerity measures – discussion about the economy, the deficit, and tax avoidance; the parasitic financial class are a cancer on British economic life, everyone is looking at each other as they start to go backwards down the up escalator and debts will never be paid off. Some evidence that tax evaders who keep their money secretly in Swiss bank accounts are being taxed under the ‘Rubik Accord’ but there is no transparency or audit trail, all done on ‘trust’ of the Swiss banks. First Great Western will not now have to compete for the Great Western rail franchise. Franchise rail contest will no longer take place, is this because First Group were caught out by Richard Branson’s Virgin cheating over the West Coast main line franchise bid? PMQs about why won’t Prime Minister David Cameron visit a food bank? Top police jobs may be opened up to anyone, including foreigners, like unsuccessful ‘SuperCops’ like LA California’s Bill Bratton in the United States.
[audio: 201302011700]
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Second hour: Israel bombs Syria to provoke war & investigative reports. Round up of some international stories with Martin Summers – Syria, Mali, Israel; a clip from Ofcom banned Iranian channel Press TV about Hispan TV, the Spanish language Iranian TV station for Latin-America that has been shut down in Spain; the EUTEL satellite which blocked the channel, run by Michel de Rosen a French/Israeli chief executive so are they using their satellite as a weapon of war? Perhaps the satellite should be shot down for censorship? Dutch royal family abdicates, and some of their interests. Steve Rose phones in to discuss a conference on ‘Journalism and Islamophobia’ he has attended in Turkey. Tony and Martin discuss the destruction of Timbuktu library of Arabic manuscripts. Respect party MP George Galloway at PMQs asking why the Coalition government supports Islamic extremists in Syria and Libya but not in Mali & Algeria? Gary McFarlane, a former counsellor for Relate, who was sacked because he didn’t feel qualified to help a gay couple with sexual counselling. Sex addiction, love addiction & personal relationship counsellor Gary McFarlane and author of The Art Of Loving sacked by Relate for his faith fights his case of unfair dismissal through the courts. Now counselling in his own Bristol practice.
[audio: 201302011800]
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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: news review with former mayoral candidate and both Labour and Tory Avon County Councillor. EXCLUSIVE Airbus magazine airbrushes Filton site from in-house production map. Tim Collins, former mayoral candidate. Discussion about the December 2012 closure of Filton airfield and the Airbus’ One in house magazine which excludes Filton in their illustration of production plants. Tory buildin co. boss Cullum McAlpine has been blacklisting builders who report health and safety concerns but doesn’t think he’s done anything wrong, somehow. The Consulting Association (TCA), chaired by Cullum McAlpine. TCA boss Ian Kerr died just before Christmas 2012, here he is, 2 weeks before he died, in front of the Scottish Affairs Select Committee. He  appears to have got hold of copies of police files or had them compiled on workers’ compare with CAPRIM (1990s) and the Economic League (1970s-1980s); employment ‘rises’ but is it only part-time work as wages stagnate – people on benefit ‘work programmes’ included as employed; crime figures – fiddling figures by lowering ‘priority’ of some crimes; Mayor George Ferguson’s new cabinet; but the Greens ask ‘Where is the new blood’? David Cameron’s Europe speech; Yeovil man dies after nurses gave him 21 x dose of his medication but family let down because nurses are unlikely to be prosecuted; PMQs on question about being forced to live on £2 a day.
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Second hour: Martin Falmer, Labour councillor for Cadbury Heath, discusses the partial closure of Cadbury Heath youth centre and Cadbury Heath Post Office moving to a Costcutter shop away from where pensioners live. Roz Beauhill and DU author Joanne Baker discuss how they would like Bristol to be a nuclear free local authority again. Nuclear Free Bristol campaign launched to persuade Bristol City Council to go ‘nuclear free’. They discuss the dangers and difficulties of nuclear power, it’s direct link through Depleted Uranium (DU) and H bomb core plutonium to the military and how there are plenty of sustainable energies that could be used. Nuclear is not green? Explanation of difference between enriched uranium & depleted uranium. Marina Morris’s Voxpops asking Bristol people if they have heard of the local nuclear trains and what they think of nuclear power. 
Michael Shrimpton, barrister and author of the forthcoming book, Spycatcher, with his theories on why government scientist Dr David Kelly was murdered. Links to French and German shipments of Plutonium to Iran? Murder all but proven by the book The Strange Death of Dr David Kelly by Norman Baker MP.
Real power, financial elite, in the Western world gather at Davos in Switzerland this weekend for World Economic Forum 2013 (WEF). Sitting down with David Cameron and Boris Johnson, the three top Tories were caught on camera flanked by half a dozen aides and security officers eating out at a cosy restaurant in Davos on Thursday night. Greenpeace activist Ben Stewart managed to snap the trio tucking into pizza and fondue at the Alte Post Hotel in the alpine resort during the World Economic Forum. Bloomberg’s spiked World Economic Forum article ‘Davos’ Dubious Strategic Partners’ by James Gibney [article has magically ‘reappeared’ after ‘Your browser sent a query this server could not understand’ 
[audio: 201301251800]
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