“We are happy to stick with the farm, one shop in Bristol and our Borough Market stall in London. If you take on too many things, it’s easy to take your eye off the ball and the cheese would suffer”
Evening Post, January 12 2008
Can you imagine? Cheese having to suffer? What a cruel world we live in …
Exercising his extraordinary powers of judgement and heading the queue to defend Peter Hain, blatantly caught with his pants down and money sticking out his hole, is none other than Wansdyke’s Labour MP Dan Norris,
Norris was parliamentary private secretary to the orange-faced foghorn during the period of his lavishly funded deputy leadership bid and he assures us that Hain, “has not done anything illegal and if it was a crime to report things late, beyond deadlines, then millions of taxpayers every year would probably be in trouble too.”
Thankfully it’s not up to dumpkopf Norris to decide, so it remains to be seen whether Hain has done anything illegal. Although receiving private donations from multi-millionaire South African diamond dealers through a “think tank” – The Progressive Policies Forum (PPF) – that employs no staff and has not published any work since its inception in December 2006 is to, say the least, an unusual approach to administrating party political donations that doesn’t seem, on the surface, to have any obvious parallel with putting your tax return in late.
Yet another hugely unpopular public spending announcement – likely to have the exact opposite effect to the one they intend – finds the city council proposing to fork out £80,000 of our money on a survey to help Muslims “integrate into the Bristol community”.
This daft and unnecessary proposal may have the unique attribute of both managing to upset Muslims – who might just be a little of wary of the state banging on their door asking a series of questions – and the wider community who might not see this as a spending priority for our cash-strapped council.
However, this survey must be done, we’re told, to get “a better picture of the estimated 30,000 people in the Somali, Pakistani, Bosnian and other Muslim communities living in Bristol.”
And in a further proof that the lunatics appear to have set up an equalities team with a media monitoring unit in the asylum, the council have also announced that they will be spending yet more money producing a 37-page “myth-busting” glossy leaflet to dispel “common misunderstandings” we’re told we hold about Islam and to point out to us its unique contribution to British culture.
Let’s hope this leaflet is a little more sophisticated than the council’s 5 myths about Islam leaflet currently doing the rounds that can be viewed here (pdf).
The leaflet seems to largely consist of ‘straw man’ statements that nobody actually believes anyway, which the city council’s in-house equalities team can then expertly disprove for us.
Hence we’re spoon fed “myths” like “Muslims worship a different God from Jews and Christians” – despite the fact very few people actually think this – just so the council can set us straight.
On some of those trickier “myths” like “Islam oppresses women, condones wife-beating, forced marriage and honour killings” we find the council taking a different tack and resorting to academic ruses from the cultural studies department in their efforts to persuade us to tolerate intolerance.
So the equalities team assures us that any apparent sexism you might equate with Islam is no such thing at all. It is in fact simply “the result of male-biased, cultural misinterpretations and a lack of understanding of Islam by some Muslims.”
So that’s all right then.
However, the “myth” that really caught The Blogger’s attention was this one: “There is no such thing as ‘Islamic terrorism'”.
No argument there really. Technically this is an objectively true statement, although it is also a misleading one as there certainly is such a thing as ‘islamist terrorism’, which the council’s leaflet fails to mention at all.
Another statement from the council seems determined to confound the issue even further:
“Data from the EU Terrorism Situation and Trend Report of 2007 for Europol (European Law Enforcement Organisation), shows that of the 498 reported terrorist attacks across Europe in 2006, only one was carried out by a Muslim.”
Is there no Islamist terror threat then? Can we conclude attacks such as 9/11, the Madrid bombings, 7/7 and the attempted attacks last summer in the UK were nothing to do with Muslims? Perhaps the media – a clear target of criticism and derision in the council’s leaflet – have just made it all up to sell newspapers?
But if – as the bulk of evidence strongly suggests – Islamists are involved in terrorism, why is a leaflet funded by the tax payer doing its best to make it appear otherwise? Does our council think this kind of confusing and misleading information is helpful?
To whom exactly?
ACT II
A provincial 18th Century theatre lies in darkness. Just the faintest ripple of whispered conversation reveals a buzz of expectation …
The curtains slide open.
A single spotlight picks out a gnomic figure sat hunched on an old crate. Dick Penny (for it is he) reaches slowly into a pocket and pulls out his fag packet. He momentatrily regards it quizzically and then begins to count clumsily on the fingers of his right hand. He pauses:
Penny: (addressing the audience) The refurbishment should cost £9m but I’ve got a mate in South Bristol who’ll do it for £6.5m cash. We’ve got £1m from the council, another £1m from a trust, £3m from the Arts Council and er, another, er £1.5m from somewhere. If we follow my radical reinvention reform plans acknowledging the need for change in which expenditure relates to income – I say we can do it. By jove! I say we can do it. Throw open the doors! Let the entertainment begin.
Just silence.
A wizened old man with a flowing white beard rises slowly from the audience …
Slowly applause breaks out, then cheers; flags are unfurled, banners unrolled, young scamps swing from the chandeliers as dogs begin to howl. The brass band strikes up a rousing version of ‘Land of Hope and Glory’ and fireworks are heard in the night outside as the audience dance in the aisles chanting “We are saved”.
Enter stage left Stephanie Cole (for it is she).
The band stops. The audience take their seats. Flags are furled, banners rolled, young scamps climb off chandeliers. Silence.
Stephanie Cole: I think I’m going to burst into tears (bursts into tears).
Slowly applause breaks out, then cheers; flags are unfurled, banners unrolled, young scamps swing from the chandeliers as dogs begin to howl. The brass band strikes up a rousing version of ‘Don’t Cry for me Argentina’ and fireworks are heard in the night outside as the audience dance in the aisles chanting “We are saved”.
Exit Stage left Stephanie Cole.
Enter stage left right a rotund buffoon clutching a golly. Richard Eddy (for it is she) attempts to address the audience.
The band stops. The audience take their seats. Flags are furled, banners rolled, young scamps climb off chandeliers. Silence.
Eddy: Whatever the hell’s going on here I completely agree with and it has cross party support.
Slowly applause breaks out, then cheers; flags are unfurled, banners unrolled, young scamps swing from the chandeliers as dogs begin to howl. The brass band strikes up a rousing version of ‘Food, Glorious Food’ and fireworks are heard in the night outside as the audience dance in the aisles chanting “We are saved”.
Exit Stage left right Richard Eddy.
Enter stage left the man from the Arts Council (for it is he) waving wildly.
The man from the Arts Council: (shouting and gesticulating wildly) Stop this! Stop this immediately.
The band stops. The audience take their seats. Flags are furled, banners rolled, young scamps climb off chandeliers. Silence.
The man from the Arts Council: This is nothing but a ridiculous circus (audience gasps) … Which is absolutely fantastic because that perfectly fits our new funding criteria for street arts. Have three million quid on me!
Slowly applause breaks out, then cheers; flags are unfurled, banners unrolled, young scamps swing from the chandeliers as dogs begin to howl. The brass band strikes up a rousing version of ‘The Hokey Cokey’ and fireworks are heard in the night outside as the audience –with Penny atop their shoulders – are led out dancing by The Evening Post’s Mike Norton and Points West’s David Garmston into the cool night to be greeted by the ecstatic peasants of the borough.
THE END
Watershed supremo and Old Vic boss elect, Dick Penny’s brave new dawn to bring our fine old theatre into the 21st century, due to commence at 6.00pm this evening collapsed into chaos at, er … approximately 5.59pm this evening when he demonstrated his inability to organise a public meeting!
The Blogger rolled up to the King Street theatre this evening just before six to be greeted by a less-than-impressed crowd huddled at the door of the theatre – many of whom had quite obviously made a mad post-work dash across town and then forked out on excessive Bristol City Council parking fees to be there – being forcefully told that they could not come in due to that old chestnut “fire regulations”.
The extraordinarily well-spoken usher on the door, when questioned on how this ridiculous state of affairs might have been allowed to occur, gave an answer pregnant with the possibility of what might well be up with our publicly funded theatre and its management. “We had no way of knowing how many people were going to turn up,” she explained.
Indeed. In this age of mass comunications, the internet and digital telecommunications how could they have possibly found out how many people intended to come to their public meeting? Matters then took a turn for the worse when somebody quite reasonably asked if there was any written information regarding what might be said at this meeting that they had effectively been barred from?
Hell no! You expect a publicly funded arts organisation, seeking millions of pounds more in handouts from us, to be able to type up and copy a simple sheet of A4 paper with some information for the public on it? That’s way beyond them apparently. What ever next? We’ll be expecting them to produce a press release like any normal professional outfit operating in the 21st century does!
“So how do we find out what’s going on in there?” asked one desperate punter.
“It should be in the press tomorrow,” came the assured reply.
“Yes but they just talk rubbish don’t they?”
“I know they haven’t been very good have they?”
“Well is there anything we can sign to at least show we turned up then?” piped up another voice.
“Er no. We haven’t got anything like that I’m afraid …”
I wonder if Stephanie Cole, Patrick Malahide and Jane Lapotaire had to put up with this nonsense when they arrived?
The Blogger, having got the story of the night from the ordinary, concerned Bristolian perspective, didn’t bother hanging about any longer as we are obviously not really wanted or considered important enough. Instead the twenty quid we were minded to donate to the Old Vic got handed over to some of those fine King Street hostelries, which were a little better organised and a whole lot more hospitable.
The next installment of the ongoing Old Vic fiasco takes place tomorrow night when – what the remnants of the theatre’s trustees are calling – a “special meeting” for the public takes place at the theatre at 6.00pm.
In the absence of a formal publicised agenda, any clear advance financial information or even a simple position statement released for people to properly consider prior to the meeting, it appears the public may well be delivered with a fait accompli regarding the theatre following a typical Bristol establishment behind-closed-doors stitch-up.
The Evening Cancer is claiming that a plan to ditch the current trustees’ pie-in-the-sky £9 million refurbishment plans in favour of vastly cheaper building works aimed at getting the theatre open again quickly will be unveiled by Chair of the Trustees-in-waiting, the Watershed’s Dick Penny.
However, even this is uncertain as Penny has deliberately made himself “unavailable” to the press and hence the public prior to the meeting. The purpose of all this secrecy is unclear. Although the chances are the meeting will be used as the coronation of Penny – personally selected by the outgoing disaster of a Chairman, Rupert Rhymes – as the new theatre boss, since, as far as we know, no other candidate has come forward and the trustees have failed to put anyone else in the frame for the job.
On a more positive note, if Penny comes good on the night and makes the blindingly obvious proposal to kick the current refurbishment plans with their £5m funding deficit into touch in favour of spending far less money dealing quickly with the theatre’s health and safety issues then a result is still possible.
While Rhymes’ daft plan to raise £5m from some unexplained source and then deliver a fancy pants refurbishment was realistically a five year project. Spending £1m-odd to get the place open again is maybe a one year project. This would also have the benefit of delivering productions to Bristol audiences quickly and potentially creating revenue for a decent and realistic refurbishment strategy to be developed.
If over the next year Penny can also recruit a new set of trustees properly versed in business realities, finance and, especially, HR – to maybe prevent whole departments walking out as happened with Rhymes’ education department – then there could be light at the end of the tunnel.
All will be revealed at tomorrow’s meeting, which may well be some of the best entertainment to be had from the Old Vic in years. Actors Stephanie Cole, Patrick Malahide and Jane Lapotaire will be going along, apparently, as will the cream of Bristol’s luvvie community. Pompous pontificating, sensitive artist whining over the cruelties of the Arts Council, foghorn-voiced bombast and blustering buffoonery of the highest order should all be in good supply!
Well done to the Green Party’s Peter Goodwin who’s proving himself to be a fully paid up member of Bristol’s depressingly small political awkward squad.
Goodwin made good use of Freedom of Information legislation last autumn to obtain information from the city council on the number of flights their staff were taking. Now Goodwin – sensibly ignoring the council’s fatuous and self-serving cross-party spectacle of faux-concern on the same day, ‘The State of the City’ debate – has instead tabled a number of tricky questions (pdf) to Mark Bradshaw and Helen Holland at the proper meeting of the full council next week.
Goodwin has tabled questions to Bradshaw on Labour’s highly secretive ongoing plans for a south Bristol ring road and on Bradshaw’s intention to hand a lucrative PFI contract to some of the Labour Party’s corporate City of London friends to build and run an environmentally destructive and vastly overpriced waste incinerator in Avonmouth.
Intriguingly Goodwin will also be asking Holland about the conduct of her council tax funded political assistant Roger Livingston. Roger you may recall is the local government officer reported in The Blogger who spends his time researching the political affiliation of council tax payers who contact Labour councillors asking them any questions.
Unfortunately it’s unlikely Goodwin will get his questions answered. Instead he’ll be bored into submission with jargon by Bradshaw and patronised to death by Holland before the pair of them clear off to plot, along with the rest of their sleazy Labour colleagues and unethical local government officer supporters, new ways to shaft us.
But well done anyway Peter
Former Bristol South MP Michael Cocks, even in the twilight of his long parliamentary career, still manages a small walk-on part in high Tory journalist Peter Oborne’s surprisingly impressive attack on contemporary parliamentary politics, The Triumph of the Political Class.
The – now – enobled ‘old Labour’ Lord Cocks of Hartcliffe makes his brief – and entirely characteristic appearance – in 2000 when New Labour were going all out to nobble the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards, Elizabeth Filkin, who was just a little too keen on doing her job properly.
Having already conducted thorough and effective investigations on our behalf in to Keith Vaz and his financial relations with the notorious Hinduja brothers; in to Gordon Brown’s wealthy benefactor, the Paymaster General Geoffery Robinson and in to John Reid‘s unusual employment practices with regards to his son, Filkin’s looming investigation in to Tony Blair’s New Labour pin-up boy, Peter Mandelson and his bizarre home loan arrangements was considered a step too far for the government.
Initially – we’re told by Oborne – Mandelson himself attempted to prevent Filkin’s investigation by using his “charm”. When this inevitably failed, we then learn that Mandelson tried bullying tactics and dark threats to Filkin regarding his friends in the press. This in itself tells you an awful lot about the endemic private schoolboy culture of New Labour. Can you imagine a soppy little prick like Peter Mandelson bullying anyone in a genuine party of the working classes? He’d wouldn’t last five minutes before he was taken outside and given a well-deserved kicking.
However, whatever his tactics, Mandelson dismally failed to stop Filkin in her tracks as he had planned. So a number of particularly loyal and ambitious backbench Labour MPs were tasked with dealing with Filkin by briefing some of the more soft-headed and impressionable members of the parliamentary press lobby that Filkin was ‘a mad alcoholic’ among other things. Still Filkin bravely refused to budge.
What was to be done? It was time for New Labour – in a last desperate roll of the dice – to wheel out their parliamentary big guns. A call went up to the Lords for old school Labour Party enforcer Michael Cocks – described, not entirely inaccurately, by Oborne as “a Labour fixer who had been a notoriously thuggish chief whip in the dying days of the Jim Callaghan government” – to have a word with Filkin.
Alas. It’s not clear whether Cocks’ persuasive skills were on the wane or whether Filkin was exceptionally brave and focussed on her public service remit, but remarkably Filkin still refused to back down and her Mandelson investigation went ahead.
Filkin even managed to hang on to her post for a further two years – in the face of an extremely personal and brutal mauling in the press inspired by government sources – before eventually being forced out when her contract was not renewed in 2002.
While this will not probably go down as Cocks’s finest moment, at least he had what it takes to make it into a book about contemporary power politics. Unlike the current Bristol South MP, Dawn Primarolo. Despite being constantly touted as a member of Gordon Brown’s ‘inner circle’ and allegedly a leading New Labour light, Oborne makes no mention of Dawn at all. But then why would he bother with someone who’s little more than a glorified admin assistant for Gordon and his charmed circle of elite Oxbridge boys?
COMING SOON: Is Oborne a class struggle anarchist in disguise?
A brief biog of the city’s favourite slave trader brought to you by Channel Zero Bristol …
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b7R8n7nIBc0]
Hat tip: Bristol 2007’s Weblog
