By Martin Whitelock
The inevitable happened:
– LibDems will wait until the June election in the likelihood of being voted in by the electorate as they are now the majority party in Bristol.
– Conservatives got severely reprimanded by LibDem and Labour for initiating the motion of no confidence so close to the June election, as an unnecessary use of council time and public money (as reflected in the four public statements). But, who can blame them?
– Conservatives attack Labour for their primary school closures, and try to force Libdems to take control of the administration ahead of the forthcoming elections.
– Helen Holland defended her position as leader with a rise in educational performance (but let’s not forget the measures keep changing), increased partnership working and administrative openness (including access to information).
– Charlie Bolton (Green Party) supported the motion of no confidence mainly on the basis of his objection to the privatisation of health care.
– the debate centred on policy differences between the three main parties (though it’s increasingly looking like two – Lab and LibDem) when I was expecting a discussion on any evidence for the basis for ‘no confidence’ or any substantive failings in the delivery of services. However, some fun was had by two councillors (Con-Peter Abraham and Lab-Peter Hammond) who had a lengthy disagreement about whether a senior officer visited Stockwood school about its closure.
A thought occurred to me. If Bristol is truly a green city, how come it only has ONE green councillor?
If Bristol is a truly green city, how come the railway from Portishead is not being used to take hundreds of cars off the roads?
How come the council don’t grit cycle lanes?
It’s all gas & window dressing.
Well at least that’s over and Bristol City Councillors can get on with the job of actually making real, lasting improvements. Well they can lie and waste and collude, fall in and fall out, deny, conive and prop one another up!
Thank Goodness the Lib Dems are waiting there to to seek real accountability, progress and representation. I know where my vote is going to be, about time this city had real leadership that actually LISTENS . Come on Bristol let’s get to this election and sort out a real future.
Hanging by a thread Helen, book your summer holiday WE won’t be needing you. Nice try Tories or should I say ”Cons” !!
Don’t they make you sick?
we can always vote for more green councillors come May. I’d also argue that Jon Rogers is ideologically aligned with the green movement.
I note that while the UK conservative party has a green presence, here in BRS they’ve become the party of the car driver. Which is a shame, as it means that whenever they hold the balance of power, they get to hold back improvements.
Careful what you wish for, Green = yellow +
!blue ! 🙁
SteveL I agree, but sum up, ”on your bike’s”.
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we can always vote for more green councillors come May. I’d also argue that Jon Rogers is ideologically aligned with the green movement
so I suppose that’s why the Lib Dems agreed with the BRT on the railway path in 2006! Wasn’t JR part of the gang then?
But John Rogers was first elected in 2005 so can’t really be blamed for policies under development at the time he was a rookie councillor. You can’t immediately go tearing into everything you don’t like the sound of within a year or two of being elected. I think he has only been the spokesperson on transport since 2007.
There is no doubt that he played a major role in getting the BRT on Path proposals put back “on the shelf” and genuinely tried to get them permanently rejected. He had to persuade his Party to go along with that position which can’t have been easy since many leading members had formerly been involved in the development of the BRT project.
“A thought occurred to me. If Bristol is truly a green city, how come it only has ONE green councillor?”
Because if it had more than one, it would collapse completely!
My goodness More than one green councillor.
After Bolt-on voted with the tories.
Imust agree Labour-ious have done little to nothing by way of creating Partnership even at local level with Neighbourhood Partnerships[ has anyone been to one of these quangos? ]The good people of Bristol being treated as Brainless;Needless and Discountable.
Other points of interest from this full council meeting:
1. Gary Hopkins announced LibDems would make an ammendment to halt the process toward the Mass Burn Incineration Scheme, which Conservatives intimated they would support.
2. Nine new Service Director roles were announced by Helen Holland: Communications and Marketing; Economic and Cultural Development; Information Communication and Technology; Landlord Services; Service Director Older People’s Services; Portfolio, Programme and Projects; Putting People First; Shared Transactional Services; Transport.
So, things aren’t going that well or there would be no need to recruit these people to drive the council and our city forward. Sadly, she also expressed the hope to attract applicants outside of Bristol so it appears there is little confidence in the calibre of people within our own city.
Nine. Nine you say.
Whatever for more money thrown into the vast pit of nothingness. Jobs for the remaining few Labourites.
It is no doubt time on June 4th to put a final nail in the prverbial coffin. Get on with what good people want to see. Finally putting and end to 30 odd years of Labour misrule in Bristol.
Yes nine!… and all at £70-80k plus, so roughly a potential additional yearly expense of £720k.
Vote chaffinch.
30 odds years of labour rule ?? but we had the libems a couple of years ago??
Maybe Jog, but, they were a minority administration, and they didn’t have very long to try anything new. And by the way , I’m NOT a Diberal Lemocrat.
Jog,
Sausage Roll Eater has a huge point here.
Ok the libedems had 2 of the 30 odd years but look at the bloody mess our city is in?That isnt down to 2 years of the libdems isit?
The cons are a spent force that leaves the LIBDEMS .Unless people see labour as our saviours myself Ionly know that Ican no longer trust labour having suffered directly from them.
I am away even talk of them is making me sick to the gills.yuk……………………………………………
Martyn,
I know the transport service director, he’s called Colin Knight. Poor sod works very hard by all accounts getting in early and not finishing until he gets home (anwsers e-mails on the bus) which is usually late. I wouldn’t want his job for all the tea in china.
Most of the current postholders were from outside the city. Perhaps its time for some local knowledge?
The Jolly Blogger said
‘I know the transport service director, he’s called Colin Knight. Poor sod works very hard by all accounts getting in early and not finishing until he gets home (anwsers e-mails on the bus) which is usually late. I wouldn’t want his job for all the tea in china.’
Colin Knight replied to an email of mine at 5 to midnight one night.
Surely one of the reasons progress of any kind in Bristol is so difficult is the negative attitudes on blogs like this. no wonder other cities are laughing and getting the money. Time to face up.
That Council meeting on tuesday was little more than a gameshow. Charlie Bolton supported the Tories – the pro-car, anti-recycling, anti-equalities lot_ v odd indeed.
madabouttransport – so you’re happy paying for services you don’t get. You must be richer than the rest of us! I’d say the fact that London and other cities gets a totally disproportionate slice of cake is more to do with an unjust political system, rather than a few cynics on a blog like this.
The libdems when in power were all set to concrete over a substantial part of Castle Park.
They were implicated in BRT and while protected the Bristol Bath Railway path recently, have gone along with the bendy bus. If the first stage in South Bristol ever gets built, it may well be rolled out elsewhere including the railway path. Should be making more fuss for the ultra light weight tram, a vastly superior system that could link directly into Temple Meads. People happily use trams, I don’t need to comment on attitutes to buses.
Wish I could share the confident in ‘Lesson to all’s party political broadcast, but I’m really, really nervous of any party that thinks its a good idea sacrifice any of the scant remaining green space in the city centre and would need to be reasured by some very strong Libdem statements of intention about this and many other issues.
The motion concerned confidence in the Labour Administration, I understand why Charlie voted for it and why the Lib Dems abstained. Both the Lib Dems and Labour have also voted with the Tories on other occasions.
Both the Lib Dems and Labour have done things that have caused problems – remember both the Lib Dems and Labours shameful record on privatising Homecare.
The Lib Dems have made a few more positive statements of intent on the environment which we should welcome, but it took a while for them to come onside in opposing BRT as Someexplainingtodo says. Castle Park should be protected as the only real green space in the centre of town.
It looks likely the Lib Dems may be running Bristol after June, a few extra Green Councillors would bring out their better side perhaps?
The real problem isn’t one party or the other. It’s the wards that would vote for a sheepdog if it was wearing the right coloured rossette.
Bristol, with it’s roughl;y even three-way split, has a real opportunity to hold individual councillors to account, but it won’t happen as long as so many of them feel utterly secure behind their party machines.
Actually, I think there is more of a problem with officers and council staff back-tracking upon the good work that councillors and campaigners do for the city.
RV – “It looks likely the Lib Dems may be running Bristol after June, a few extra Green Councillors would bring out their better side perhaps?”
Any extra Green councillors are likely to be at the expense of Lib-Dems in places like Ashley, Redland and Bishopston. Are the greens ready to form a coalition with the Lib-Dems? Charlie’s recent vote suggests not.
I don’t mean to butt in but how long has this been up for?
http://www.tomorrowsbristol.co.uk/roles.asp
I think thats true for most Councils Jozer, I have seen some really decent people run as independents and get bugger all votes, which is a shame.
(In 2007 across Bristol Labour got 29.67% Lib Dems 27.21% Tories 25.20% , Greens 14.24% and others 3.69%. )
Being such a varied city votes for each party are concentrated in particular wards and parts of the city.
Holly’s right – the council officers are so used to being able to sit back while councillors play politics -safe in the knowledge that they’ll never have to take any action on behalf of the tax payers – it’s very hard for councillors who want to achieve change on behalf of campaigners within their wards. This is true regardless of party affinity. Party politics just undermines the whole process of democracy as far as I can see
2 points from a previous post under the title of somex…
Castle park
There are some very grotty buildings at the Corn St end which need redeveloping. Officers were sent away to come up with a development plan but what they came back with was unnacceptable because it colonised the park.It was thrown out by the then Lib Dem cabinet. The pity is now that nothing at all is likely to happen for some time and the existing buildings are not pretty. The present Labour administration are quietly burrying the plans that I believe have been paid for.
On the transport issue ,with varying degrees of reluctance,all four parties have accepted the bus option as the only one that government will fund.
The fault lies with government centralism.
Chris,
I can’t answer for the Greens as a whole, but personally I would take eash issue as it comes, rather than backing up the Lib Dems, regardless of whether we agree with them on an issue or not.
On some issues Charlie has voted with the Lib Dems, on others against them, which is fair enough as far as I can see.
If the situation does arise, I expect some hard arguments in the Green Party on what we do, I’m sure the same would be true for the Lib Dems if the ball was on the other foot (As it may well be in Norwich, where Greens look like they may become the largest party after June)
I’d agree with Gary Hopkins that government centralisation prevents councillors of whatever party getting things done as well as they could.
“Most of the current postholders were from outside the city. Perhaps its time for some local knowledge?”
So Bristol Blogger, are you bidding for the communications and marketing post, yiou seem to know what’s going on most of the time
There’s a lot of complaint about the party system on the council, but (as has been pointed out) that’s what the voters choose. We may not like the results, but……..
There have been many indie candidates over the years, all have failed. The Bristolian made a lot of noise a few years ago, stood candidates & flopped (as BB well knows I guess).
But it isn’t difficult to stand as a candidate, all you need is 10 signatures & you’re on the ballot paper. Then go knocking on doors. 652 votes would have won you Filwood less than 10 years back.
Why do we assume so glibly that there is any painless solution to all our booming problems?
Our civilization has nearly run its course. We have been globalised. We have mostly been atomised. It is completely unsustainable. The cracks are getting wider and wider every day. There is no pretty papering that will cover these chasms for long. Like California, we await the big one, the ineluctable.
Alas Paul – surprise, surprise! – local knowledge and knowing what’s going on in Bristol appear nowhere in the essential criteria.
But you do need this:
So they’re not too up themselves are they?
I also fear that not having a post graduate qualification in business school jargon may work against me.
Although the real money shot for this job is this:
This is basically a request for someone to tell us that black is white. There is no “One Council”, it’s a meaningless soundbite made up by Ormondroyd.
The council is quite transparently a large and complex organisation with a lot of competing priorities and needs. Why would you want to pretend otherwise? Do they think we’re all stupid and won’t notice?
This idea that it can be sold like a high street brand is ridiculous. Only an idiot would try.
The holder of this post is doomed to failure.
Time to bring back the Bristolian party?
BB I can see you’ve read the pack – like the idea of thought control in local government and I am looking forward to a one council experience
One Council? Presumably to go with the One City and One Leader?
Unity in Diversity
Strength in Unity
etc etc …
Let us march forward into the wastelands of North Somerset and South Gloucestershire. Let us establish a Greater Bristol to last for the next thousand years.
Yes, those benighted Bristolians who find themselves living under the jackboot of neighbouring authorities should be brought into a Greater Bristol.
And we need room to expand – Living Room – down Ashton Vale way and into our historic homelands in South Gloucestershire. It is Our Destiny to dominate the West of England.
You can see how it strikes a chord deep in Our Hearts, can’t you?
Customer? Please don’t insult me Bristol City Council. You’re running a city, not a shop, therefore I’m a citizen.
Sceptic – hear, hear!… but if they were a shop you certainly couldn’t get your money back, even with a receipt!
Gary Hopkins, you’re not exactly being very honest here are you. You sound the injured innocent.
”Officers were sent away to come up with a development plan but what they came back with was unnacceptable because it colonised the park.It was thrown out by the then Lib Dem cabinet.”
You mean you didn’t give officers any sort of direction or briefing. And when they came back with a plan that was clearly unacceptable why then did you not act appropriately and rapidly ditch it to protect yourselves from the predictable outrage. Instead you spent further money on Deeley Freed setting up a totally dishonest manipulative consultation and for quite a long while didn’t provide any decent response to the protesting thousands.
Doesn’t add up Gary. Were you all off abroad together and didn’t notice the growing public distress and the disbelief that this scant green space could ever be sacrificed.
Transport. If ” all four parties have accepted the bus option as the only one that government will fund”, couldn’t you have taken this rare solidarity to Westminster to pursue a vastly superior ultra lightwt tram system, together. Worth a try surely.
Why accept such a rubbish BRT system in any circumstances. Not showing much leadership here Gary