A former Bristol City Labour Councillor who was recently shortlisted as a potential candidate for Doug Naysmith’s Bristol North West seat has responded to allegations of corruption in Bristol Labour Party by agreeing “we have our problems”.
Kelvin Blake the former councillor for Filwood Ward who was recently disabled in a motorcycling accident was responding to an allegation that:
In this city whenever you find the Labour Party or its friends and business partners around government funding you can also discover appalling bad practice, nepotism, poor accounting, favouritism, cover-ups, dodgy references, redeployments, gagging orders etc. It’s so rife, it’s a waste of time pretending otherwise.
While firmly distancing himself from such conduct – “I can’t be implicated,” he said – he went on to agree that: “We have our problems but the other [parties] outshine us in the problem department everytime.”
So that’s all right then!
This shocking admission comes after many years of unrest regarding the conduct of certain Bristol Labour Party members, former members and their close associates working, volunteering and on occasions randomly interfering in the city council funded voluntary, community and regeneration sector.
Many voluntary organisations including Filwood Community Centre, Southmead Development Trust, Easton Community Centre and CEED have developed inexplicable and confusing financial problems over the last ten years.
The city council department responsible for the provision and monitoring of grants to these organisations – Community Development – has also come under fire on a number of occasions for its apparently persistent inability to properly monitor the public funds it disburses and for an almost non-existent record at detecting and preventing poor financial management and fraudulent activity.
Voscur, the city’s supposedly independent representatives for community organisations, also funded by the city council, has been criticised in the past too for supporting the Bristol Labour Party view over that of its members.
Bristol Labour Party has run the city now – except for a short break 2005 – 2007 – since the mid 80s and Bristol is often informally referred to as “a Labour Rotten Borough”.
Blake failed to explain how Bristol’s other political parties “outshine us in the problem department everytime”
The Bristol Blogger’s school truancy report, complete with – wait for it! – the Labour’s Education Exec’s blatant and undeclared conflict of interest – is coming soon.
Pingback: Bristol Labour: corruption one of “our problems” admits former … | Political news - democrats republicans socialists greens liberals conservatives
Fantastic Sunday Sport standard story I must say! You really have let yourself down with this one.
Only those who have already made up their minds about the subject would believe I was admitting corruption within the Labour Party. You are simply wrong about that, it does not exist.
What I meant when I said “Our problems” is:-
– attracting new candidates into winnable seats
– making the most of the talents within the Labour Group
– getting more out certain Cabinet Members
– building on electoral success
Everyone would agree that the Labour Party in Bristol could do better but contrast that to the out of touch Tories or the Lib Dems who brought this City to a standstill under what their so called leadership.
Helen Holland is doing a good job but like most people in the City, I am impatient for more improvements in our schools, social services and in regeneration and for them to be delivered much faster than they seem to be at present.
You understand now Bristol Blogger?
Kelvin,
Lib Dems brought the city to a standstill?
I’m no Lib Dem fan but that’s rubbish. Labour have run this city for decades and look at the state of our education provision, the worst public transport of any major city in the UK and disintegrating cultural life.
That’s the result of Labour’s leadership in this city.
Stop blaming others for your own shortcomings.
The Labour party run this city entirely for the benefit of themselves, their friends and family. That’s why everything’s shit here.
Look at home care – Hammond’s union friends calling the shots.
Then there was the appalling site of the T&G’s Alun Beynon funding election leaflets with his members subs to get his son elected to the council at the last election
This is government by inbred self-servers for inbred self-servers.
You invited me to spell out the problems of the other political parties, let’s start with The Lib Dems:
1. Tried to sell off Care Worker & Caretaker jobs to the lowest bidder
2. Implemented a broken waste policy which resulted in more rats and rubbish on our streets and charged people for the privilege!
3. Stopped progress on the Bristol South hospital because of their incompetence
4. Closed community facilities right across the City against residents
5. More concerned with stabbing their Leader in the back than Leading the City
The Tories:-
1. No vision for the City
2. Willing to jump on any popular policy because they have been in the wilderness for so long
Last but not least, The Greens:-
1. Supported the Lib Dems job slashing policy for Care Workers
What a sorry story and thankfully the Lib Dems only had their hands on the reigns for a few years.
I accept that much more needs to be done in Education and Health in Bristol but I fear that the cabinet members responsible for these areas are not up to the job!
Kelvin,
Are you saying financial problems at Filwood Community Centre, Southmead Development Trust, Easton Community Centre and CEED did not exist?
Or are you saying that no member of the Labour Party existed at these places?
Kelvin,
just a few points on your points
1. Lowest bid isn’t a pre requisite of local government tender awarding rules, so that’s not accurate. Labour can hardly be said not to have proposed a scheme similar to the lib dems themselves before now can they?
We’ve still yet to see what labour will now actually do here have we, which could be claimed to mean things here are grinding to a halt.
2. The rats due to brown bins issue was more of an evening post story than a significant factual reality wasn’t it? I don’t see how it can have resulted in more rubbish on our streets, just rubbish differently packaged. How was the charging people related to the notion of composting with brown bins, or are you just conflating two issues here for political gain?
Anyway, hasn’t the citizens jury labour commissioned just largely backed the lib dem proposals on this area?
3. You really believe progress on an PCT issue, watched over by central govt, can be stopped because of incompetence on the part of the council, an external organisation to the PCT? It’s even less likely to have been stopped because of the incompetence of individual councillors given how little influence they wield in this area.
4. Emotive terms, little actual substance to that though, care to elaborate?
5. How many leaders have Labour had since Bunyan lost her seat? Are you admitting Peter Hammond was stabbed in the back?
You know, someone shouted down jon rogers for making a party political broadcast on here the other day.
I did indeed register a little disqueit about councillors making party political broadcasts on here the other day, and the blogger said this…
“Unfortunately here at The Blogger, we’re entirely committed to free speech and are militantly anti-censorship, so it’s hard to ban anyone. …Besides surely any comment from a councillor that isn’t on a stupid leaflet, accompanied with their photo on a local traffic island, that’s shoved through your door is a step forward?”
And now look what’s happening. The Bristol Blogger is rapidly becoming the forum of choice for elected members to spout their stupid lies. Don’t these idiots realise that no one outside of their own parties thinks they’re credible or interesting?
Free speech is a fine principle, but Blogger, surely you can edit for offensive content? These cunts do my head in.
Sorry Kelvin
I was talk as a child never trust people who talk about important issues in absolutes.
“Only those who have already made up their minds about the subject would believe I was admitting corruption within the Labour Party. You are simply wrong about that, it does not exist.”
Oh that’s ok then. Sorry mate I do not agree with you, because corruption exists everywhere and the honest folk accept and work to prevent where possible. It should not be ignored.
Keren
The more they talk the more stupid they sound. In the end they might notice and just bugger off.
Kelvin Blake says
‘Last but not least, The Greens:-
1. Supported the Lib Dems job slashing policy for Care Workers’
Err, as the only elected Green, I can assure you I never voted for a policy of ‘job slashing for Care Workers’.
I also voted your party into power – solely on the basis of not privatising Home Care.
A ringing endorsement of Labour from Charlie.
Tell me in a years time if we have more and better care for the elderly or less and if other council services have had to be cut. Incidentally although meals on wheels was under serious threat when we took over and officers were telling us there was no choice but to continue Labour ‘s plans we did manage to save that one and number of users has gone up over the past years with no massive strain on the budget. We did not there though face a workforce that had been manipulated for political gain.
Bristol Guy is quite right that the citizens jury did endorse the waste service plan but that does not mean everything is perfect.Communication,particularly to non Engish speakers and some students needs to improve and service delivery is poor in some areas.
Trouble is Labour set out their stall to undermine the service in unholy alliance whilst in opposition and do not seem to care now about delivering it the best way possible.Progress has stopped.
They tried desparately to keep the facts hidden,thought the CJ could be used as a human shield but underestimated the average citizens good sense when they get access to a few facts and are not reliant on dodgy leaflets.
Council meeting on 4th Dec will concentrate on the issue. Watch for yourself on the WEBCAM and decide who is telling the truth and has the answers.
I very nearly gave up and said nothing here. It’s hopeless isn’t it? The most depressing thing is that while political parties fight amongst themselves this city burns (sometimes literally). When all they care about is slagging each other off, nothing gets done.
Meanwhile the vast majority of us outside of these meaningless anachronistic institutions try to go about our daily lives, waiting for a non-existent over-priced bus, waiting for the non-collection of our rubbish, hoping pointlessly and poignantly that our children might get educated in a local state school, and asking that our frail and elderly might get a standard of care that doesn’t make us hang our heads in shame.
All the while the people in control of these basic services think it’s a good use of their time and energy to surf the internet looking for another opportunity to score another meaningless political point.
Watch for yourself on the BCC webcam on Dec 4 and discover why 2 thirds of this city can’t even be bothered to put an x on a piece of paper in the hope of changing anything.
Ha, ha, ha……
….. my bin was collected this week, it was collected last week & I confidently predict it will be collected next week…
…. when I go down to work I bet I see a non-existent bus ( do I get prize !!)…
etc etc etc…..
.. but of course this doesn’t fit into Keren’s ‘doomed. doomed, we’re all doomed’ silliness…..
.. but thanks for the laugh this early anyway…..
Kelvin Blake – Just a question, was it you who wrote to venue complaining about the new Thali cafe on St. Matks road?