NOT The BCfm Politics Show

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.

This popular show is still available here

First hour: Mayor referendum and police commissioner election taking place this May but are either going to be good for Bristol or for democracy? Does anybody really want it? Councillors are ‘corporate parents’ for over 700 children in Bristol City Council care. What is the role of a local authority? Bristol has a turnover of £1bn anually. Are LibDems just propping up a Tory government with no voice at all? Debt write-down in Greece but Greece still unable to meet financial targets. We are no nearer to solving the financial crisis despite nearly two years of the coalition government they are still blaming the previous Labour government. Main regulation is 1989 capital requirement for banks which means now they can not lend. Casino style investment banking. Profits in investment banking are preying on the real financial sector such as the Avon County Council pension fund. Greg Smith resignation letter from Goldman Sachs calling his former employers ‘muppets’. Goldman Sachs not actually mupets but much more devious. Harriet Harman faces Nick Clegg at Prime Minister’s Questions on the topic of the privatisation of the National Health Service in a few days time. Jeremy Corbyn asks about private rent regulations, private landlords raking it in. Child protection or child theft? Marina Morris looks at secret family court system which takes children off their parents but doesn’t look at the rights or needs of the parents. News review with political economist Polly Winch and LibDem Councillor for Bishopston, Dr. David Willingham.
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Second hour: The Battle For Arnhem – A Bridge Not Far – recent revelations that show Field Marshal Montgomery’s Operation Market Garden, in September 1944, aimed at severing German supply lines on the Western Front should have worked. It was early morning in Holland on Sunday 17th September 1944 and as the gliders and paratroopers poured down along a sixty mile corridor to hold the bridges. The furthest bridge from the front line at Arnhem became the focus of attention as and the biggest airborne operation in history unfolded. Was it really ‘A Bridge Too Far’ as the title of Cornelius Ryan’s book and Robert E. Levine’s famous film imply? Or could the tanks and ground troops of XXX corps have gotten through to relieve the surrounded British paratroopers? With Arnhem only 10 kilometres, a 30 minute drive away and a virtually clear road ahead – General Horrocks’ M4 Sherman tanks inexplicably halted for 17 hours. By the time the tanks started rolling at lunchtime the next day British paratroopers had run out of ammunition, been forced to surrender and German Panzer 5 & Tiger tank reinforcements had arrived to block the way. The Nijmegen bridgehead was established around 19:00hrs, 3 hours later, at 22:00hrs that evening the British were forced to surrender at the Arnhem bridge. So paratroopers of the 1st Airborne division at Arnhem bridge may have been relieved in the nick of time and war in Europe could have been over six months earlier, by Christmas 1944. We look at Cornelius Ryan’s book ‘A Bridge Too Far’ as well as Joseph E. Levine’s film of the same name. Interviews with: Captain T. Moffatt Burriss, author of ‘Strike and Hold’ who was commander of i-company, 504th regiment, 82nd Airborne division during the legendary Waal river crossing; Robert Kershaw author of ‘It Never Snows In September’ who interviewed 10th SS Panzer Division Brigadeführer Heinz Harmel, commander of the German defence of the Nijmegen and Arnhem bridges; Major Tony Hibbert who was a senior officer of 2nd batallion 1st brigade, British 1st Airborne division at the Arnhem bridge; Tim Lynch author of ‘Operation Market Garden: The Legend of the Waal Crossing’; Sir Brian Urquhart, army intelligence officer in the run-up to the operation he was critical of it and transferred before it began… but later became Secretary General of the newly formed United Nations.
There’ll be a special ‘new Betuwe scenario’ event at noon on Saturday 17th March at Cut And Thrust Wargames on Old Market.
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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: Bristol Councillors having to make freedom of information act requests to get information from council officers. Five servicemen killed this week in Afghanistan bringing the total UK servicemen killed to over 400 – council want to sell off Daisy Field and Henacre open space in Avonmouth. Bribery allegations levelled at Bristol City Football Club. Large sums of money offered to drop Ashton Vale stadium legal challenge. 2500 disabled people look to be sacked by this government; Kevin Hepworth from UNITE the union on closure of Remploy network of workshops and factories designed for disabled people; RBS offshores 300 jobs and will RBS ever ‘return to health’; Joan Ruddock MP criticises removal of disability benefits from 10 year old cerebral palsy child; Sharon Hodgson MP is policy being run by two public schoolboys that don’t care? Are all these little cuts idiotic? Privatisation of front line policing and police stations and election for new police commissioners. MPs fury as top Catholic describess gay marriages ‘as immoral as slavery’. News review with Cllr. Peter Hammond, leader of the Labour group on Bristol City Council.
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Second hour: Is economic growth bad for the environment? Energy bills, fuel poverty, fuel prices and profits of the big six energy companies. EDF energy today fined £5.5m by Ofgen. 400 different tarriffs offered by privatised gas and electricity firms in UK. Industry suffering chronic problem of short-termism. David Powell from Friends Of The Earth.
29:00 – Tens of billions wasted as MoD police fraud squad turn a blind eye to procurement crime: Bristol’s Abbeywood Defence Equipment and Support (DES) is the national HQ for Ministry of Defence (MoD) procurement. But we uncover systematic fraud involving the MoD and the private weapon development and manufacturing industry as the government plans to privatise procurement. Cost plus contract fraud report by former radar, sonar, Communications Command & Control and Tactical Data Systems software engineer Robert McCartney. MoD police fraud squad work for MoD so will not prosecute even when there is clear evidence of fraud saying that what MoD chiefs and other ‘important people’ say ‘must be true’. Former BAe Chief Executive Admiral Sir Raymond Lygo told BBC Radio 5 in January 2004 that BAe routinely used changes to the contract specification which doubled or tripled costs to taxpayers without any outside competition. Some of those allegedly to blame for endangering our armed forces and national security: James Arbuthnot, Michael Portillo, current LibDem Minister for Defence Procurement Nick Harvey all alleged as complicit in fraud, if only by their ailure to act against it. Also LibDem director of policy and research Greg Simpson failed to deliver improvements he promised before the 2010 election. The 2006 crash of Nimrod XV230 investigated by Charles Hadden-Cave. Is present chair of the Public Accounts Committee Margaret Hodge succeeding in cutting this fraud down? Mainstream newspapers afraid to publish known facts about MoD procurement fraud.
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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 including Ashton Gate stadium bid, Bristol City Council budget passed this week with £27m of cuts, Credit Default Swap insurance derivatives ruled ‘invalid’ when Greece defaults, network of cash in hand informers, many on the payroll, when will we see charges for corrupt police? David Cameron ‘too close’ to News International? Prime Minister’s Questions, petrol & diesel prices, Housing benefit reform’s new ‘bedroom tax’, squatters in Clifton, will Bristol Labour group confiscate houses & property from people they don’t agree with? Two people arrested over alleged Avon & Somerset police release of Christopher Jefferies name to the press. All public statements from Avon & Somerset police should go through Portishead HQ Media Relations Manager (most recently Victoria Tag) and her boss, Head of Corporate Communications (most recently Amanda Hirst). They answer directly to Chief Constable Colin Port. ‘This week’s Leveson revelations with Conservative Councillor Mark Weston.
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Second hour: Bristol Radical Film Festival with Shaun Dey from independent political filmmakers Reel News. News blackout on Electricians Union dispute. ‘No More Fukushimas’ demonstration next weekend, 10th & 11th March 2012, on 1st anniversary of Japan’s nuclear disaster. Latest developments on possible new nuclear power station being built at Hinkley Point by French firm EDF with Crispin Aubrey from Stop Hinkley. Outside interference in Syrian Civil War – EU/NATO/Israel have no desire for peace, French and British close their embassies in Damascus. Finally getting the full picture of Islamic terrorism – it leads back to Western intelligence services. Voting fraud is more common than you think, Bush cheated both times he was ‘elected’. Anonymous target CIA linked Strategic Intelligence firm Stratfor, target of latest mass Wikileaks. The Obama administration’s war against truth by Amy Goodman. Stratfor’s Intelligence-Industrial Complex. Onscreen apology from BBC World News for showing a whole series of advertising programmes but pretending they were documentaries. Author of Extreme Prejudice: The Terrifying Story of the Patriot Act and the Cover Ups of 9/11 and Iraq. Susan Lindauer’s CIA handler Richard Fuisz told her, “tell Saddam Hussein to do what we say” or the US are “going to declare war on Iraq and bomb it back to the stone age”. Threat originated above the Director of the CIA and above Secretary of State – comes directly from president Bush, Vice-President/arms manufacturer Dick Cheney and Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld. Every crime requires motive and opportunity: “9/11 was like a magician’s trick”. Were WTC Twin Towers pre-wired with explosives? Nightly between 23rd August and 3rd September 2001, between 3-5am, parking garage cameras filmed 3 or 4 suspicious minivan trucks, this evidence all allegedly captured on CCTV over two weeks. Were individuals in these vehicles laying explosive charges in the buildings ready for 9/11?
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