The Bristol Blogger is unwell

Posted on May 4, 2007 by The Bristol Blogger

The Bristol Blogger is away until Tuesday. I’ll leave you with an old leftie joke courtesy of Red Left Review mainly because I like the cut of his strapline:

Red Left Review strapline

An old revolutionary walks across the Brooklyn Bridge one day, and he sees man of a similar age standing on the edge, about to jump. He runs over and says: “Stop. Don’t do it.”

“Why shouldn’t I?” he asked.

“Well, there’s so much to live for!”

“I’m just depressed, I’ve been a Communist all my life and the revolution seems as far away as ever”

“You’re a Communist?”

“Yeah, why?”

“I am as well!! Did you originally join the Communist Party USA?”

“Yeah”

“Me too! Did you join the pro-Trotsky Communist League of America in 1928, which later merged with the American Workers Party to form the Workers Party of America in 1934?”

“Yeah”

“Spooky, Me too! After the WPA was expelled from the Socialist Party of America in 1936 did you then go on to join the Socialist Workers Party USA and the fourth international?”

“I did actually…”

“Me too! In the 1940 dispute did you side with Cannon or Shachtman?”

“Cannon.”

“Me too! In 1962 did you join Robertson’s opposition caucus, the Revolutionary Tendency?”

“Yep.”

” Holly shit! And of course like me you were expelled and went on to join the International Communist League (Spartacist)”

“Well that goes without saying!”

“In 1985 did you join the International Bolshevik Tendency who claimed that the Sparts have degenerated into an “obedience cult””

“No way!”

“Nah, me neither. In 1998 did you join the Internationalist Group after the Permanent Revolution Faction were expelled from the ICL?”

“Yeah! I can’t believe this! Maybe I won’t….”

“Die counterrevolutionary scum!”. And he pushes him off the edge

The Blogger will return Tuesday with all the gossip and a  full analysis of last night’s election plus much more.

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

Bristol Election 2007 at a glance

Posted on May 3, 2007 by The Bristol Blogger

Lib Dems – 31 (-2)

Labour – 25 (+2)

Conservative – 13

Green – 1

Labour are winners on the night with 29% of the vote and 2 gains. Lib Dems get 27% of vote and lose 2 seats. Tories go backwards getting only 25% of the vote down from 30% last year and gain no seats. Greens get 14% of vote up from 13% last year, no seats and have stood still. BNP did shockingly well.

Posted in BNP, Bristol, Conservatives, Green Party, Labour Party, Lib Dems, Local elections 2007, Local government | | There are 2 comments

Bristol Election 2007 with The Bristol Blogger

Posted on May 3, 2007 by The Bristol Blogger

Election logo

Bristol’s state of the art digital graphics election tour-de-force…

Follow Bristol’s election results as they happen with expert commentary, analysis and graphics.

Here’s how it works: The Blogger’s scientifically calculated predictions by ward are listed below. Wards in bold are listed as ‘ones to watch’. As the results come in The Blogger will print RESULT next to the ward.

Comment, analysis and state-of-the-art explanatory graphics by ward will also be added as the night progresses.

Result: Ashley – Lib Dem Hold 12.10pm

Greens come second with 34%, that’s 1127 votes. But Lib Dem Shirley holds on with 1237 votes. Very, very close. It’s Southville or nothing for the Greens then.

RESULT: Bedminster – Lab Hold

No surprises here either…

RESULT: Bishopworth – Tory Hold 12.08pm

Tory leader Richard Eddy and his golly are back with ease.

RESULT: Brislington East – One to watch! Lab ward. Tory challenge 11.45pm

Labour hold on by 85 votes from the Tories. Seems to be a drop in support for the Tories here.

RESULT: Brislington West – Lib Dem Hold or a big Tory night!

It’s not a big night for the Tories I’m afraid.

RESULT: Cabot – Lib Dem Hold

Completely as expected. Expect planning permission to build on Castle park in the autumn.

RESULT: Clifton – Lib Dem Hold

Lib Dem leader Janke’s back with 50% of the vote. No surprise.

RESULT: Clifton East – Lib Dem Hold 12.14pm

Former Lib Dem now Tory Roy Tallis fails to pull off a shocker by just 41 votes. Phew that was nearly exciting.

RESULT Cotham – Lib Dem Hold

Lib Dems hold both seats

RESULT: Easton – Lab Gain 12.16am

Yeeeessssssss. Vile dribbling Kiely is gone!!! Social services strikes again!!! Labour win by 80 votes. Respect poll a, er, respectable 621 votes

RESULT: Eastville – Lib Dem Hold 11.58pm

Easy Lib Dem hold with increased vote on last election.

RESULT: Filwood – Lab Gain (from Lib Dems) 11.35pm

As predicted Labour landslide with 67% of the vote!!! Tories beat Lib Dems into 3rd place. It’s a total Lib Dem disaster.

RESULT: Frome Vale – Tory Hold 11.46pm

Tories take it with 46% of the vote. Labour get 30%. BNP get 399 votes (12%) mainly from Labour supporters. They’ll be pleased.

RESULT: Hartcliffe – Labour Hold 11.55pm

No Labour meltdown in Bristol I’m afraid. They’ve increased their share of the vote from last year from 44% – 50%.

RESULT: Hengrove – Lib Dem Hold

Jos Clark averts disaster for the Lib Dems by just 30 votes

RESULT: Hillfields – Lab Hold

Easy Lab hold

RESULT: Knowle – Lib Dem Hold 11.40pm

Pretty much the same result as last year. Nothing to see here.

Lawrence Hill – Lib Dem Hold

Sue O’Donnell by 81 votes. Hopefully the Labour Party will now give the Bush Rat the boot.

RESULT: St George East Labour Hold

\

Labour Hold but with a reduced majority. BNP take 20% of the vote…

RESULT: St George West – Lab Hold

Labour only just hold off the Tories by 41 votes.

Southville – Lab Hold 12.45pm

“Daddy’s Boy” Beynon holds the seat for Labour by 6 votes. Bastard.

RESULT: Stockwood – Tory hold 11.30pm

No real surprises. Jay Jethwa takes 50% of the vote with 1476 votes. Greens come second with 599 votes ahead of Labour 0n 568 votes. Could be story of the night – Tories and Greens.

RESULT: Whitchurch Park – Labour Hold 11.52pm

Labour leader hangs on with ease (44%) against Lib Dem (28%). BNP take 13% of the vote (427 votes) mainly from Lib Dems! Shaping up to be a bad night for the Lib Dems.

RESULT: Windmill Hill – Lib Dem Hold

Easy hold for Lib Dems

Posted in BNP, Bristol, Conservatives, Green Party, Labour Party, Lib Dems, Local elections 2007, Local government | | There are 8 comments

Inner city Lib Dem blues?

Posted on May 3, 2007 by The Bristol Blogger

Reports of a historically low turnout so far in Easton especially in the Lib Dem heartland of Whitehall. It looks like Labour and Lib Dem voters rather than switching might be staying at home to express their disapproval.

Senior Lib Dem Dennis Brown and Abdul “The Mayor” Malik have both been spotted running around the ward like blue-arsed flies for most of the day too.

A bloody nose for Kiely in Easton could spell the start of a very bad night for Bristol Lib Dems indeed. It’s said if he were to go in Easton and his partner Jos Clark, the Lib Dem education exec, is booted from Hengrove by the Tories – which is a possibility – then that’s the end of Janke’s Junta in Bristol.

Let’s wait and see…

Posted in Bristol, Easton, Lib Dems, Local elections 2007 | | There are no comments yet

Election predictions

Posted on May 3, 2007 by The Bristol Blogger

The Blogger is not doing ward-by-ward predictions as it’s too complicated and some of the contests involve very local affairs and isuues and are too tough to call. However, overall The Blogger thinks it will pan out something like this:

Tories – to gain 2-4 seats

Labour – to lose 2-4 seats

Lib Dems – to lose 1 – 3 seats

Greens – to gain 0- 2 seats

BNP – Will do well to get into 3 figures anywhere

Overall winners on the night – Tories. Result hung council – Lib Dem minority administration.

Happy voting!

The Blogger will be blogging live on his laptop from Stephen McNamara’s office at The Council House this evening. Witness EXCLUSIVELY all the thrills and spills of election night as they happen!

Posted in Blogging, BNP, Bristol, Conservatives, Green Party, Labour Party, Lib Dems, Local elections 2007 | | There are 2 comments

Makes me wanna holler – inner city news

Posted on May 3, 2007 by The Bristol Blogger

A lot of high value election entertainment to be had over in the inner city at the moment. Labour’s Lawrence Hill candidate Bush Rat Ali, the Photoshop faker (Blogger passim) has already added considerably to the city’s mirth levels with an election performance so inept that even a turkey would probably vote for Christmas rather than him.

The Bush Rat’s behaviour comes as little surprise to many locals, however. Apparently he’s been running around Easton acting the arse for some time now. Indeed his relations with sitting Easton Lib Dem councillor Abdul “The Mayor” Malik have degenerated to the point where community leaders are considering stepping in to ‘mediate’. (For those of you not familiar with a ‘community leader’, that’s any old boy with a beard who’s prepared to agree with whatever a local politician says)

Obviously these two titans of local politics are engaged in a pitiless battle of ideas for the hearts and minds of East Bristol’s masses. Such ideological concerns as whether, er… Bush Rat the local jeweller’s 4×4 is better than Malik’s the local butcher are high on the agenda as is the ongoing row over who’s got the most expensive shiny suit.

Sod the mediation with these two chancers says The Blogger. Just set up a boxing ring on St Marks Road and let ’em slug it out. They’d be pretty evenly matched – both are useless with the left and I’m sure they could sell a lot of tickets. Maybe they could use the money to employ some more liberal community workers to take them seriously?

Or perhaps they should settle their differences quietly with a spelling contest? Bush Rat “Working for Britin” Ali who can’t spell the country he lives in vs Abdul “The Mayor” Malik who can’t spell the name of the school he’s supposed to manage:

Acadamy
Abdul Malik, register of members’ interests

Quite a contest.

At least Bush Rat’s cretinous behaviour should mean he’s blown any chance he had of winning in Lawrence Hill and saved the city from the major embarrassment of having him sat in the council chamber as the Labour Party, for some reason, would like. This should have been a tight contest with Lib Dem Sue O’Donnell sitting on a majority of just 97. It’s her seat to lose now.

Next door in Easton there still remains a fascinating contest. The ward is held by John Kiely the Lib Dem Executive member for social services who has recently tried to privatise the home care service in the city. This has brought in “I’m the daddy” Beynon’s home care workers by the truck load campaigning hard on Labour’s behalf as well as Jerry Hick’s Respect Party bandwagon that came a very good second in Lockleaze last year.

There’s a lot of wild claims knocking around this ward. Labour claimed a week ago to have 1,500 votes in the bag, Respect 1,000 votes, Kiely’s Lib Dems are confident of victory (1000+ votes) and the Greens, despite not campaigning at all, will get at least 200 votes from daft hippies in Greenbank. This means there’s gonna be 3,700 votes cast today which will involve a highly unlikely 25% odd increase in turnout. Hmmm.

The Labour Candidate in this ward is good value too. Faruk Choudhury has been putting out endless leaflets claiming to be against the war, which must come as good news to Pat Robertson, the solid old Labour former councillor who was deselected by her party from her Avonmouth ward two years ago for expressing the very same views.

Choudhury is also another candidate struggling with the geography of the city. “Welcome to my patch,” he announced to a meeting of home care workers after a “Kiely must go” march through Easton recently. That’s a mighty big patch he’s got then, considering he lives in Cliftonwood and was a stalwart of the Cliftonwood and Hotwells Community Association until recently!

Logic dictates that Kiely should hold this ward as the home care, anti-Kiely vote will be split between Respect and Labour and Kiely’s a good enough campaigner to get his core vote out.

The final inner-city ward is Ashley. Currently held by Lib Dem Shirley Marshall, this ward could be won by Labour, the Lib Dems or, on a good day by the Greens. The incumbent Marshall has barely been seen for months now. Ever since, in fact, she decided to defy almost the whole of Bristol’s black community and join her boss Barbara Janke in backing the city’s embarrassing Abolition 200 celebrations.

This culminated in Marshall holding a ridiculous ‘community meeting’ for the city’s black population which just one person attended. The Coalition of Black Groups, meanwhile, who resisted and boycotted Marshall and Janke’s Abolition celebrations were attracting hundreds to their meetings.

It’s unlikely Marshall will be getting many votes from the black community then. And with Labour fielding a decent-ish black candidate, Ricky Nelson, plus the strong and unpredictable protest/anti-war/socialist vote in the area possibly going to the Green, this contest is wide open.

The Blogger’s certainly not going top try and call it anyway.

Posted in Ashley, Bristol, Easton, Green Party, Labour Party, Lawrence Hill, Lib Dems, Local elections 2007 | | There are no comments yet

Election stuff to make you raise an eyebrow

Posted on May 2, 2007 by The Bristol Blogger

Some eyebrow raising in Hillfields at present as the Labour candidate, Martin Golding puts out a leaflet assuring the electorate he “lives locally”. Shame his nomination papers list his address as upmarket Westbury-on-Trym on the other side of town then.

Considerable levels of eyebrow raising in Windmill Hill too. The Green candidate there, Stephen Petter, explains at some length on his leaflet how The Greens differ from all the other “grey parties”. Not when it comes to putting bollocks on election leaflets they don’t. Petter says, “I live in Redcatch Road near the centre of the ward”. Which is one way of saying you don’t actually live in the ward!

And finally a few eyebrows raised around Hartcliffe after the Evening Cancer’s local election guide to the area was printed last Thursday. “The riots of [1992] – in Symes Avenue,” said the paper, “were sparked following the deaths of two men who fell off a motorbike during a police pursuit.” Just ‘fell off’ did they? No collision with an unmarked police car you feel need to mention?

Posted in Green Party, Hartcliffe, Hillfields, Labour Party, Local elections 2007 | | There are 2 comments

The Bristol Blogger: News updates

Posted on May 1, 2007 by The Bristol Blogger

A couple of brief updates on some stories:

Bush Rat Ali, the Lawrence Hill Labour Photoshop faker

Whispers reach The Blogger that The Evening Cancer is declining to run the Photoshop faker story because “it is too sensitive” for election time. That’s an interesting set of news values they have there.

Deliberately withholding information from the city’s electorate concerning the suitability of a candidate for office. Whatever happened to the press’s supposed role in liberal democracies of holding power to account?

The Cancer should also bear in mind that it was these very same ‘soft focus’, see-no-evil-hear-no-evil news values – when they last deliberately withheld information about a person blatantly unsuited for power – that helped foist John Astley on this city. And we all know where that ended…

Bristolian 94

And here’s what The Cancer’s Chief Political Reporter, Ian Onions, eventually got ’round to telling us after Astley was convicted:

“Within three months of being elected councillor gossip was rife in the corridors of the Council House that Astley was attracted to young girls and pregnant women.”
Ian Onions, Bristol Evening Post, September 28 2004

So if the Bush Rat is elected and it all goes predictably tits-up we’ll know who to blame won’t we?

“I’m the daddy” Beynon’s rotten boroughs

Meanwhile Alun “I’m the daddy” Beynon has taken to the blogosphere to defend himself against charges of nepotism. He comments on Charlie Bolton’s blog:

“For the record, the T&G is fighting an extremely serious industrial dispute and it is a dispute which involves Bristol City Council. Home care workers have produced and distributed many thousands of leaflets, two thousand into Southville and many more in other wards across the City. So, sorry Chris, no corruption or nepotism involved, just T&G members fighting to save the Home care service.”

So that’s all right then. It’s not nepotism ’cause Beynon says it isn’t.

Leaving aside the fact that Alun seems to be a little confused about the difference between an industrial dispute and an election campaign why are his home care workers so keen for Alun’s friends and family in the Bristol Labour party to sweep to victory in these elections anyway?

The Bristol Labour Party privatised 52% of their service when they were in power and unaminously voted in 2005 in favour of the ‘Parrot Report’ a blueprint for the wholesale privatisation of social services in Bristol. Nationally Labour Party policy also promotes such privatisations. What did the T&G do about any of that?

What’s in a Labour victory for the home care workers exactly? On Beynon’s orders they’re spending time and money campaigning for Beynon’s friends and family who are actually members of a party who are on the record as being committed to the privatisation of their jobs.

Will Bristol Labour really defy their own party policy and save the home care service? Or is Alun telling his members some convenient porkies?

Posted in Bristol, Bristol Evening Post, Journalism, Labour Party, Lawrence Hill, Local elections 2007, Media, Southville, Trade Unionism | | There is 1 comment

The Bristol Blogger's basic rules of the internet

Posted on May 1, 2007 by The Bristol Blogger

No. 1: That incisive, cutting and witty monologue you so lovingly produced half-pissed on Friday night may not have quite the qualities you thought by Monday morning…

Learn to be a journalist

A clearly tired and emotional gentleman of the local press took to the blogosphere on Friday night to tell The Blogger a thing or two about the unimpeachable integrity of local journalists such as himself and the general all-round excellence and brilliance of the local press of which he is an integral part.

In the course of a wide ranging and, some might say, slightly embittered rant the pissed hack using the nom de plume ‘Mainstream’ told The Blogger:

You probably think you’re big and brave for taking the piss out of the BNP, while there are people working in the local “mainstream” press, and other papers up and down the country, who put their names on the BNP stories they research and write, risking violence, intimidation and ending up on the Redwatch hate-list because of it. That takes more balls that you’ll ever have.

Ooh, er missus! Get her…

So what did The Blogger find when he opened his copy of The Cancer yesterday morning? Only a garbled story on page 12 concerning the BNP. It was about who might have racially abused who when the BNP were sent packing out of Fishponds by locals recently. One of The Blogger’s stories that The Cancer didn’t even bother covering at the time.

And which brave hack “risk[ed] violence, intimidation and ending up on the Redwatch hate-list” to bring us this BNP story then? ‘John Houseman’ according to the byline.

Well done John. The drinks are on The Blogger when we meet… Or they would be if you actually existed! Because unfortunately ‘John Houseman’ is a regular and well-known pseudonym used by The Cancer when they want to hide the identity of the real writer of a story. Wow! What balls.

But let’s not forget it isn’t just the superior courage and bravery of the boys in The Cancer newsroom that makes them better than the rest of us. ‘Mainstream’ also explains:

Please don’t flatter yourself that anyone would steal the stories of some nihilist nobody on the web. They come from proper sources; newswires, reading press releases between the lines, but mainly from contacting people and doing research. It’s called journalism.

Well that’s told me then as I turn to the very next story – on page 13 – in yesterday’s Cancer – ‘Bristol’s on the right wavelength’:

The group behind Bristol’s bid to become the country’s leading digital city is pushing on with its pledges despite failing to win a competition last month … There were 10 regions in the running for the top prize … Manchester was named the overall winner

Interesting stuff. No doubt people have been contacted, the research done and so “It’s called journalism” down at The Cancer. Only one problem here. It’s wrong. Manchester was not “the overall winner”. Sunderland was. Have a look for yourself.

Ho, ho, ho. It looks like it’s back to the drawing board for the The Evening Cancer and its oh-so superior, moralising hacks. Their brilliantly staged attack on The Blogger has totally backfired, producing some high falutin’ pompous lecture with no basis in reality and enough running gags to keep us going for the next year.

Feel free to have another crack next Friday night after a few drinks ‘Mainstream’ mate.

Posted in Blogging, BNP, Bristol, Bristol Evening Post, Journalism | | There are 7 comments

Nepotism watch: keeping it in the trade union family

Posted on April 30, 2007 by The Bristol Blogger

Daddy's boy

We’re all fairly used to the fact that the toffs and the upper middle classes have always openly used nepotism as a simple method to get on and up the career ladder. A little helping hand from daddy at appropriate times is little more than a very English interpretation of meritocracy in influential professions such as the law, journalism and politics.

But in Bristol we now find these methods are being embraced by those good ol’ honest sons of the soil – the trades union movement. Which rather goes to show what happens to an organisation when the ambitious middle classes take over and ‘professionalise’ it.

Gag 1

Over the weekend the T&G delivered leaflets across the Southville ward of the city calling on voters to ‘Don’t Vote Green’ because they are letting down Home Care workers whose jobs are currently threatened by privatisation.

There is an element of truth in this. Southville’s Green councillor – the only one in Bristol – Charlie Bolton has been all over the place on this issue claiming to support the home care workers and then proceeding to abstain on a crucial vote at the Council House where he could have supported them.

He did himself few favours too on his blog when discussing canvassing for this election :

So far, on the doorstep, only one person has mentioned the HCBU (and he would have voted Labour anyway)

A comment that rather strongly gives the impression that if there aren’t votes in it he couldn’t give a toss about it…

But whilst Bolton and the Green Party deserve to be condemned out of hand for their cynical electioneering over home care – claiming to support the workers at election time whilst opting out of votes to support them. The T&G’s actions are still very mysterious.Gag 2

The purpose of their leaflets is quite transparent. It’s a means of supporting the Labour Party at these elections whilst – rather usefully for the Labour Party – the cost of the leaflets and their delivery is not considered part of their election expenses.

Nothing unusual in this you probably think. The close relationship between the Bristol Labour Party and the T&G has been in place for years . It’s well-known that senior Labour councillors like Peter Hammond, John Bees and Helen Holland have been propped up and financially supported by the T&G for years.

Moreover if the T&G wishes to use its members’ money to financially back people who, when in power, persistently privatised their members’ jobs – and who even introduced the blueprint for the wholesale privatisation of social services in the city that the Lib dems are following – that’s between them and their members.

However you do have to wonder what the purpose of attacking the Green Party is. Home care privatisation is being forced through by the Lib Dem administration running the city. The Greens have one councillor. Their views are irrelevant. Shouldn’t the T&G be attacking the Lib Dems at these elections?

Admittedly T&G leaflets have gone out in Easton where the head of social services and privatiser-in-chief John Kiely is attempting to hold his seat. But why no T&G leaflets in Lawrence Hill where Labour can challenge the Lib Dems? Or Filwood? Or Windmill Hill? Or Knowle? Why no leaflet for Clifton where the Lib Dem leader Barbara Janke is up for election?

Gag 3

Well. One answer might be that the Labour candidate for Southville is Sean Beynon. And it just so happens that Sean’s daddy is Alun Beynon, the T&G Deputy Regional Secretary for Bristol and a key trades union player in the home care workers’ campaign.

Isn’t it convenient for Sean that daddy got some leaflets printed and distributed at T&G’s members’ expense for the very ward he’s standing in? Isn’t it convenient for Sean that these leaflets support him in one of the tightest election fights in the city? And isn’t it convenient for Sean that they should tell voters not to vote for his nearest rivals – the Greens? And isn’t it convenient that the T&G suddenly thinks it’s more important to attack the Greens over home care privatisation than the Lib Dems?

The Bristol Blogger intends to keep a very close eye on Sean “Daddy’s Boy” Beynon should he win on Thursday and thanks to daddy and his access to his union members’ funds he might well do so.

T&G members wishing to contact Alun Beynon about his use of their funds for family purposes can speak to him on 07711 057099 or email him at lhayes@tgwu.org.uk

One member’s already written expressing his disgust.

Posted in Bristol, Green Party, Labour Party, Lib Dems, Local elections 2007, Southville, Trade Unionism | | There are 5 comments