Nutter of the week

Posted on July 8, 2007 by The Bristol Blogger

Yvonne Ridley

No competition this week. Congratulations former Express journalist, now Respect candidate, Yvonne Ridley. You are The Blogger’s nutter of the week.

The Islamic convert has, The Blogger learns, now taken a job – Lord Haw Haw style – with Press TV, Iran’s new state-run English-language 24-hour news channel.

Ridley says: “I see it as an antidote to Fox TV that will give a different perspective to the coverage that you get from the mainstream media. It’s not shock TV, tabloid TV or propaganda promoting reactionaryism.”

Really? Their story about the attacks on London and Glasgow airport, headlined “More threadbare propaganda from the west” was a perfectly serviceable account of recent events – until the final paragraphs, where the reporter suggested they were staged by the UK government, in order to tarnish the image of Muslims enraged by the knighting of Salman Rushdie!

(Hat tip: Harry’s Place)

Posted in Conspiracy theories, Media, Middle East, The British Left, The Trots | | There are no comments yet

Live tosh

Posted on July 8, 2007 by The Bristol Blogger

Madonna - Live Earth

I reckon that Madonna might have a bright future in the music business. She put all those whiny public school pratts – Razorlight, Kasabian, Blunt etc. – who are supposed to be the cream of British music industry to shame.

But then what do you expect from a bill that opened with the British rock’s original and worst public school boy band ever – Genesis. Why aren’t they dead?

On a related note, anyone noticed how Ashton Court headliner Damon from Blur seems to have lost his mockney accent recently? Since he wrote his wanky opera in fact. Seems he’s now reverted back to the posh upper middle class accent he was born with…

Posted in Ashton Court, Bristol, Toffs | | There are no comments yet

Evelyn Post: Bristol's public-private partnerships explained…

Posted on July 7, 2007 by The Bristol Blogger

#1. E-democracy

Connecting Bristo Mansion House event

Evelyn Post is The Bristol Blogger’s resident cartoonist. He has a woman’s name.

Posted in Blogging, Bristol, Evelyn Post, Local government, Media | | There are no comments yet

Southville expects…

Posted on July 6, 2007 by The Bristol Blogger

Balloons over Southville
Photo by Johnny Monroe

The sense of nervous tension is palpable on the streets of Southville this Friday evening. The steady buzz of conspiratorial whispering from huddles of strange trousered bearded liberals on North Street fights for space with the mournful melodies of dated trip-hop tunes from bustling cafe bars.

The diversity of it, the chaos! The extra-eager patter of jelly shoes on tidy pavements, the urgent to-and-fro of bicycles on Coronation Road, the impatient queues outside delicatessens, the lingering smell of just cooked lentils in the nostrils of fresh-faced children, the old maids hiking to the community Clean and Green meeting through the fumes of this evening’s traffic. All these are not only fragments, but characteristic frag– (that’s enough scene setting, Ed.)

Yes. It is time. Tomorrow’s papers have been enthusiastically pre-ordered and North Street newsagents are prepared for the early morning onslaught. Within hours Saturday’s Guardian will be on the streets and The Blogger predicts its magical Weekend glossy supplement will contain within its hallowed pages a ‘Let’s move to…’ column on “the Bristol suburb” of Southville…

Who will be in and who will be out? What’s up? What’s down? What’s around?

Will ol’ red trousers, Georgie Ferguson, make the cut yet again and find it’s another good day for his media profile? What of Charlie Bolton? Can the curiosity value of being Bristol’s only Green councillor and based conveniently in the heart of the city’s brown rice belt win the day? What about Labour weirdo Ben Barking and his crazy community gang? Did they get the access?

Then there’s the all-important cafe bars. Will The Tobacco Factory perhaps be mentioned? The Lounge perchance? Or will a new and quirky independent sweep all before them?

For now, the answers must rightly lie in the hands of the slumbering liberal gods of Canary Wharf and, alas, us mere mortals can only sit this evening and wonder…

With apologies to George Orwell 

Posted in Bristol, Journalism, Media, Southville | | There are 4 comments

E-Democracy Pig Fucker style

Posted on July 5, 2007 by The Bristol Blogger

Three laptops
The benefits of three laptops and a “no blame” culture for some e-democrats…

Bristol’s Chief Executive, Nick Gurney, often says “It’s easier to beg forgiveness than to ask permission” and I encourage the Consultation and eParticipation team, which I manage, to adopt this as a mantra. Each team member approaches the work with a sense of creativity, commitment and fun and takes personal responsibility for trying out new and better ways to engage with citizens. There is no blame culture. When things go wrong, as they inevitably do when you are leading the way, we just sit down and work out what lessons have been learned. In this way, each consultation or participation is just a little better and a little bolder than the last.

Stephen Hilton, Corporate Consultation Manager, speaks to eGov monitor on the success of e-democracy at Bristol City Council and citizens participation

Bristol City Council is at the forefront of practice in its use of new technology to consult and engage with local people. In recognition of this, the council was judged to be the leading European city for e-democracy in 2005.

‘E-Democracy Takes Shape In Bristol’ by Bristol City Counci (PDF)

e-Democracy the way forward

The ambitions of the programme are to:

  • devolve more power and responsibility for identifying issues and solutions to local citizens and communities
  • show that the council is listening to and representing people effectively
  • encourage more informed discussion, where people learn to listen and tolerate one another
  • reach the least engaged citizens and communities in a more effective way.

‘E-Democracy Takes Shape In Bristol’ by Bristol City Council (PDF)

Fine words indeed.

Was it just 3 months ago that Bristol City Council, led by Chief Exec Pig Fucker Gurney, were aiming to be the leading digital city in Europe? Remember how they were promising “widening participation” and claiming to be at the cutting edge in innovating new forms of democracy for us through their well-funded efforts to win the government’s Digital Challenge?

So what happens when one of those “least engaged citizens” they’re so keen to engage with and devolve more power and responsibility to attempts to promote some informed discussion?

Er… Pig Fucker gets ’em sacked!

On Tuesday a citizen of Bristol, Felix Waterhouse, posted on to far and away Bristol’s most effective, long term and successful e-democracy site – Bristol Indymedia, a site that puts Pig Fucker’s expensive software efforts from overpaid consultants to shame – a short piece outlining a public conversation he had had that day with Pig Fucker, a public servant (Blogger Passim).

There was nothing secret or confidential about this conversation, although admittedly it didn’t shed Pig Fucker in the best light. So what happened today? It’s only announced that Felix has been dismissed from his agency job for making “libellous allegations”.

So there you have it. If you’re one of Pig Fucker’s £50k plus a year fawning local government officers or one of his overpaid consultants involved in e-democracy then it’s all about forgiveness as “there is no blame culture”. You dare be an agency worker on six quid an hour and attempt any of this alleged e-democracy then you’re fired matey.

Pig Fucker… You’re a fucking disgrace!

Posted in Blogging, Bristol, FOI, Journalism, Local government, Media | | There are 3 comments

Venue's latest revolving door shocker!!!

Posted on July 5, 2007 by The Bristol Blogger

Venue ad

They’re keeping that revolving door of editors at Venue’s St Andrew’s HQ very well oiled.

The latest to jump ship is hackette Rebbecca Dean appointed less than a year ago in a blaze of publicity as Venue’s first female editor.

Looks like power-behind-the-throne, Managing Editor Dave Higgett and his fellow aging Clifton Boys’ Club crew have seen the latest youngster off anyway. Who next for the hot seat?

The Blogger will, of course, be applying for this exciting media opportunity – online. On here to be precise. Look out for that application this weekend (or if I don’t get ’round to it, maybe next time in nine months?)

Posted in Bristol, Journalism, Media | | There is 1 comment

It's war!

Posted on July 4, 2007 by The Bristol Blogger

Darfur
Image of Darfur, Sudan

Readers of this blog may be confused to hear that this blog is now officially at war with Sudan!

At the request of the organisers of the Ashton Court Festival, for reasons that I can’t be arsed to go into right now, war was officially declared at 10.00am this morning when The Blogger released the following statement via the Indymedia network.

“I am speaking to you from the Blogger HQ, Bristol.

This morning the Blogger’s Ambassador in Khartoum handed the Sudanese Government a final note stating that unless we heard from them by 10.00 a.m. that they were prepared at once to withdraw their troops from Darfur, a state of war would exist between us.

I have to tell you that no such undertaking has been received, and that consequently this blog is at war with Sudan.”

In an Alan Partidgesque twist, The Blogger has already been condemned by apologists for genocide masquerading as the “members of Bristols Sudanese community” – yep all ’em!

Their criticism? They allege – demonstrating a sensational understanding of the racial basis of most genocide – The Blogger is white!

The humourless remnants of the confused British left… Dontcha luv ’em?

Posted in Blogging, Bristol, The British Left | | There are no comments yet

It tolls for thee Gurney…

Posted on July 4, 2007 by The Bristol Blogger

Nick GurneyCollege </p> <p>Green

Fascinating revelations on Bristol Indymedia about the city council’s chief exec Nick Gurney (the bloke pictured above who looks like he might fuck pigs in his spare time) who’s currently supposed to be organising the effort to make Bristol the greenest city in Europe .

A local recently got in to conversation with the hopelesly inept civil servant over a free buffet at some public function Gurney actually managed to get his lazy, bureaucratic arse along to.

Gurney revealed openly and in some depth his views – that he’s paid £120k a year not to have – on the environment and the city. And what gems they are.

Bearing in mind the small issue of the creaking pile of shite that is the public transport infrastructure he’s responsible for, here’s his view on that:

“Think of this, I pay a couple of thousand pounds on a new car, then another thousand getting it insured, taxed and legal.

Why should I have walk twenty minutes in the rain to get to a bus stop, to wait for a bus which is late and sit beside people I don’t know, only to get to work late and wet.

Why shouldn’t I be able to use the car I have paid for?”

He also helpfully explains his reasoning behind – maybe – getting a few more buses (not rail, light rail or trams, mind) on the road:

“The only reason, that I would go about putting more buses on the road and improving public transport, would be so there’s less traffic on the roads for me to drive to work in.”

Brilliant. There you have the level of strategic thinking from the man paid a small fortune to coordinate the city’s public transport, its green agenda and its response to global warming. On the subject of which he hilariously quotes Groucho Marx:

“What has posterity ever done for me?”

Before outlining exactly why he couldn’t give a toss about global warming:

“To be honest with you, in 50 years, I’m going to be dead.”

Could be a lot sooner than that if this overpaid, underperforming. self-serving useless old Tory-boy fuckpot was lynched on College Green…

Posted in Bristol, Developments, Local government, The Useless Old Fuckpot Files | | There are 2 comments

The Lambeth wank

Posted on July 3, 2007 by The Bristol Blogger

Casually leafing through – like you do – the agenda for tomorrow night’s meeting of the Council for the London Borough of Lambeth, The Blogger’s eye is caught by Agenda item number 10 – Cabinet Portfolios. It says: “The administration has advised on changes that need to be made to the cabinet portfolios agreed by Council at its annual meeting.”

Well, one portfolio that remains unchanged is the Deputy Cabinet Member for
Young People’s. The Cambridge educated barrister Sam Townend will continue to receive £20k a year in allowances to represent the citizens of the Princes Ward of the Borough and, on top, continue his sterling work on behalf of the many, many deprived young people of the borough. Townend might therefore be reasonably expected to put in around at least 20 hours a week to perform these important duties.

Surely this can’t be the same Cambridge educated barrister Sam Townend selected as the Labour parliamentary candidate for Bristol North West last week (Blogger passim)? The Sam Townend who publicly says: “I commit to working as a full-time candidate based in Bristol North West”

Indeed yes. It is that very same Sam Townend. Isn’t it remarkable what you learn at Cambridge these days? Like how to be in two places at once and fit four jobs into your life.

Townend also makes a lot of noise on his Bristol North West campaign website (as opposed to his Lambeth Labour site) about his fantastic campaigning skills that created a swing to Labour in his Princes Ward of 31%. Although he does seem to have forgotten to mention anything about the material posted on to his election campaign website about his Lib Dem opponent Charles Anglin that had to be hurriedly removed after allegations that it was homophobic.

Now The Blogger can reveal even more about our London barrister friend’s much vaunted (by himself) campaigning skills. The following has been leaked to The Blogger from Labour’s official online discussion forums where a Labour Party member wrote:

There was a brilliant campaign in Lambeth in the last local election, with two ‘grassroots’ campaigns put up by concerned locals to unseat Lib-Dems by focussing on the Lib-Dems, on the issue of a new school and closing Clapham swimming pool.

Actually the campaigns were not grassroots at all, the Local Education Action Plan being a slick front, a stalking horse put up to get Labour back in, if not a Trojan horse were LEAP to have won any seats at all. They targetted Lib Dems specifically and only, an odd tactic considering if they were really interested in office they’d have bandwagoned onto demolishing Labour seats (as happened everywhere else). Labour indeed retook Lambeth, the only council gain the party made on the night.

Sam says on his local website: “He is serious about bringing that campaigning drive to the now marginal Bristol North West constituency.”

Great. We’ll look out for the dodgy community campaigns appearing in Bristol North West soon then. In the meantime why not spend some time trying to work out what the fuck the Labour Party are trying to foist on us now… Alleged homophobe… broken promises already… specialist in dirty tricks campaigns…

But it’s all alright ’cause he’s a barrister that went to Cambridge.

Posted in Bristol, Bristol North west, Elections, Labour Party | | There are 8 comments

Gordo makes it plane obvious

Posted on July 2, 2007 by The Bristol Blogger

Bristol Airport Expansion

Opponents of Bristol Airport expansion should take very careful note of at least one of Gordo’s appointments to his all-singing, all-dancing, all-inclusive new cabinet “of all the talents”.

The appointment of former CBI Director Digby Jones as minister for trade promotion dovetails rather nicely with the corporate financier’s appointment last month as the chair of ‘Flying Matters’, a new coalition – in their words – “to lobby over climate change.”

Its members include easyJet, British Airways, Virgin Atlantic, Rolls-Royce, Airbus, BaE and BAA. It has appointed former pro-nuke energy minister Brian Wilson as vice chairman.

Their campaign director Michelle Di Leo – former aviation minister Glenda Jackson’s daughter-in-law – gives a flavour of their approach: “Flying isn’t a luxury – it underpins our economy and contributes to our lives in so many ways. It is precisely because flying matters that this coalition has been formed to ensure we’re part of a balanced and informed debate about our contribution to climate change and what we’re doing about it.”

It’s all looking cosy for the air lobby then. And since the lobby group’s chair is now working at the top of Westminster, access couldn’t be any better for them.

Conversely, in his “government of all the talents”, Gordo has found no room for anyone with any remotely green or environmental credentials. It’s therefore safe to say the only green the aviation industry is likely to have to deal with is the light for further airport expansion.

In Bristol, we might as well assume Bristol Airport’s plans will be going ahead along with the South Bristol ring road at the behest of this Labour government helpfully assisted by their unelected local business friends – the SWRDA, GOSW, The South West Assembly etc. Any claims to the contary by local Labour boss Helen Holland and her hopeless gang during elections can now be safely disregarded as total bollocks.

Posted in Bristol, Developments, Labour Party | | There are no comments yet