The Bristolian - 21/01/02
localnews4us@yahoo.co.uk | 22.01.2002 15:45
MICKLEWRIGHT: YOU GREEDY BASTARD! COUNCIL LEADERS VOTE THEMSELVES GIGANTIC PAY RISES
In a scarcely believable move last Tuesday, the Labour Leaders of our City Council voted themselves huge pay rises to be paid for by us in one of the highest Council Taxes in the country. Labour Leader GEORGE MICKLEWRIGHT voted himself a cool £30,000 a year while the seven Executive Members of his Cabinet will be getting £25,000 a year! Let's hear it for: DIANE BUNYAN, PETER HAMMOND, HELEN HOLLAND, CELIA LUKINS, JOHN BEES, JENNY SMITH and GRAHAM ROBERTSON. The sheer hypocrisy of these eight Labour Councillors, who will be coining it in while shedding crocodile tears about cuts in Education and Social Services expenditure, is beyond belief. The increases were supported by both Conservative and Liberal Democrat groups on the Council because their leaders will also be getting whopping increases. The whole package of increased allowances is expected to cost £500,000 a year!!! What a shower of greedy self-serving money grabbers! An even bigger rise could be coming next year, when THEY will review THEIR OWN wages again, and Micklewright's proposed pay may rise to a staggering £50,000 a year and Cabinet members £39,000 a year. At this rate Micklewright will be better paid than the Prime Minister! The whole Council - all parties - are responsible for this kick in the teeth for the people of Bristol, but as leader Micklewright must bear most responsibility. Quite how he can look the people of Knowle West, who voted for him, in the face is beyond us. But then, he very rarely does.
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THOSE CABINET MEMBER PROFILES IN FULL:
"GREEDY GEORGE": Micklewright cultivates his non-charismatic bumbling persona as some kind of self-imaged anti-hero. As he shuffles home to Southville with his brolly and briefcase George laps up the looks of contempt from his fellow pedestrians. But the minute he gets indoors he rips off his tweed jacket to reveal the Superman-style logo: "GREEDYMAN." " £50,000 SMACKEROOS A YEAR. YOU MUGS. YOU MUGS" chortles George rolling on the floor among the monopoly money with his string vest tucked into his Y-fronts. Finally Greedyman drifts into a fitful sleep. He dreams of his excited constituents in Knowle West, pouring onto Filwood Broadway in celebration of the wonderful news of his huge pay rise. "For He's A Jolly Good Fellow" echoes far into the night down to the VENTURE INN where a beaming Mao-style portrait of George adorns the wall. (Meticulous to a fault George makes a mental note mid-dream to have it moved further from the dartboard). Cheering crowds throng through the day carrying George shoulder high down LEINSTER AVENUE. Street urchins tug at his jacket crying "Gawd bless you Mr Micklewright Sir". "Well now my young ragamuffin" asks kindly George "why aren't you in school at this hour?". "Beg pardon Sir" comes the reply "but our school is closed down". "What villain could do such a heinous thing" raged George "give me the varlet's name". "The school was called Merry of the Wood, Sir, and twas you that closed it Mr Micklewright Sir 'cos there was no money".
Greedyman awakes in a cold sweat: Can it be true or was it a dream. Anxiously he searches for the council minutes. No, there it is in black and white: £30,000 A YEAR FOR GREEDYMAN! It's true!
"HER HIGHNESS" HELEN HOLLAND: Humourless, insufferably smug and condescending. Holland is continually surrounded by fawning acolytes who mutter "poor Helen" into her fevered brow. Because you see poor Helen is "so misunderstood". On Message enthusiast for every New Labour initiative, Holland is PRAWN DIMAROLO Mark II, and already eyeing up Doug Naysmith's North Bristol seat for the next General Election. Her Highness does not like your caring Bristolian. On recently seeing the local headline: "Her Majesty to visit Bath" Holland angrily phoned her appointments secretary shouting "You've double booked me again!"
"LARDASS LUKINS": Celia Lukins represents the Avonmouth ward on the City Council. She sits on the Port Authority (where she puts the other cheek we don't know!) and cosies up to the Avonmouth companies whose pollution gives her constituents the shortest lifespan in Bristol. Local Labour councillors in private rubbish Lukins but fail to tackle the Shirehampton Leviathan in public.
BRISTOLIAN READERS' POLL: IS CELIA "LARDASS" LUKINS THE FATTEST COUNCILLOR IN BRITAIN? SHOULD HER SEAT BE REVIEWED BY THE BOUNDARIES COMMISSION? Email
localnews4us@yahoo.co.uk with YES or NO Results next week!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
BRISTOLIAN NEWS:
Record circulation again this week - 4,250 - shows just how popular your caring Bristolian has become. It also means it now costs us £60 a week to produce, so keep that sponsorship coming in! You can sponsor a whole issue (£60) or half an issue (£30), or a fiver will get you a sponsor's mention. If you're given the Bristolian in the street every week think about donating £1 next week so we can keep expanding. Target 10,000 by Easter. This week's sponsors:-
Half the Issue: Cheers to DISCO DARREN - Top Man!
The other half: Cheers to MARTIN, KEIRON, WILDEBEEST, ELLIE and SEX-EE-JOY.
Help also needed with distribution on the streets and round pubs and cafes. We can deliver to your door, so take a bundle for work/pub/street/café/college/shop/office/school/whatever/wherever. Feel free to increase our circulation on your boss's photocopier. News/stories/articles/tip-offs/rumours/gossip/confidential documents, all welcome by e-mail or post to our addresses below:
Box 3, Greenleaf Bookshop, 82 Colston Street
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
CRAPITA HORROR!
Can we be amongst the first to welcome CAPITA, one of the most useless companies ever, to our fair city? These clowns flog what they call "professional support services resources". In English, this means they get given lucrative contracts from daft government privatisation initiatives and then screw them up at a tidy profit for themselves, whilst creating misery for me and you. Unluckily for Bristol, CRAPITA have just been given £500m to run the TV licensing service based in Broadmead and employing 1,500 fine Bristolians. The staff there can now expect some good old-fashioned streamlining and downsizing. That means redundancies, pay cuts bullying management, impossible targets and, of course, huge funds available to pay consultants to tell them how to neutralise unions, but little money available to staff their offices properly. The Bristolian advises workers to get out now. CRAPITA are useless! Amongst the firm's recent successes was their contract to run the Individual Learning Account scheme for the Department of Education for £50m. This scheme was stopped in December by the Education Secretary, Estelle Morris, due to widespread fraud, abuse, poor administration and streams of complaints. A full-scale police fraud enquiry is currently under way. CRAPITA have also had lucrative accounts in Lambeth and Bromley to run the Councils' Housing Benefit Services, which the Government claimed had unacceptable back-logs of up to 3 months when run by local authorities. Enter CRAPITA and scenes of total chaos as backlogs went up to, er, 6 months-plus, and the systems had to be hurriedly returned to the councils (at a vast loss to taxpayers, naturally). But CRAPITA's piece-de-resistance must be their attempt to get their own employee, New Labour arselicker Lord Bassam, elected mayor of Brighton, claiming that a "strong leader who can personally commit" made it easier for firms like theirs to "develop partnerships". The people of Brighton weren't having any of this bollocks and booted CRAPITA and their boy Bassam firmly into touch. LET''S HOPE BRISTOL DOES THE SAME AND GETS RID OF THESE TOSSERS ASAP!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
SO FAREWELL THEN!
Richard Ridell, Director of Education. You were crap at your job. You were useless and incompetent. Good riddance Ridell! But even at your going you managed to coin yourself a year's fully paid leave to "write a book". Presumably with cloth pages and bunny rabbits on it!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
COP WATCH: BAZZA DUZZA GAZZA!
Step forward PC BAS JAVID of Southmead Police Station. Bas was fined £500 this week for assaulting a woman outside the RAJ RESTAURANT in KING STREET. Leanne Meaden was knocked to the ground and Javid arrested and found guilty. Our readers will be delighted to know that this will be no bar to Bas's future in the police force where he is shortly expecting promotion. Good work Bazza!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
SOUTHMEAD POOL HORROR!
Who says the City Council never listens? After years of asking, the people of Southmead are finally going to get a swimming pool. Only one problem, mind: The City Council aren't building it or running it. Instead, they've flogged some land to Whitbread PLC who will kindly build a swimming pool and sports facility for the people, or at least, those of them prepared to pay £600 a year to join one of their David Lloyd fitness centres. Who'll be using the place then? The people of Southmead or the middle-classes of Westbury-on-Trym. Don't bother to put the answer on a postcard. The Bristolian's discreet enquiries as to why the council couldn't build and run a cheap facility were met with the reply that "the City Council's probably spent all the available money for the area on the £1m bar for Labour Party members". Oh, and we haven't for a clue where the money from the land has gone. Not to Southmead, though.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
PUB WATCH by Man O' The Peep 'Ole
SUPPORT THE MINERS (again!):One of the most popular pubs in Long Ashton, THE MINERS ARMS, is due for demolition if developers get their way. The long history of selling superb cask conditioned beers and local cider will be lost if plans for the demolition of the public house and the erection of three luxury dwellings goes ahead. The Miners Arms has a place in the hearts of many villagers, citizens of Bristol, people of North Somerset, students, walkers and cyclists. The fate of the pub is in your hands: Please contact anyone willing to chain themselves to a bar stool for a good cause. This wanton act of developer vandalism cannot be allowed to go ahead! Contact Ms J Porter, North Somerset Planning Officer, on 01275 888 888 to voice your opposition. SAVE THE MINERS ARMS!
GIN PALACE CLOSED!Yet another of Bristol's finest pubs has shut down. The GIN PALACE in Old Market with the famous sloping floor is expected to remain closed for at least two months as major utility works are carried out. Reopening only a year ago as the Palace Hotel, it's had some memorable knees-ups. Let's hope that disturbing rumours reaching the Bristolian that it may in fact never re-open can be discounted. To lose both the Gin Palace and the Miners Arms would be a drinker's disaster!
SOUTHMEAD PUBLICANS FIGHT BACK AGAINST LABOUR'S BAR:Southmead landlords have been vocal in opposing unfair subsidised competition from the Labour Party's plans for a £1.5 million bar complex at the Southmead Development Trust, paid for by council tax payers. Quite how the local LABOUR MAFIA have managed to identify this as a £1.5 MILLION spending priority - as against Southmead's very real needs - is beyond anyone else.
Local people have pointed out that City Council Cabinet members - you know those struggling along on £25,000 a year expenses - JENNY SMITH and PETER HAMMOND are on the Trust's Board of Directors! This subsidised Labour Party Bar would put many struggling local pubs our of business.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
In a scarcely believable move last Tuesday, the Labour Leaders of our City Council voted themselves huge pay rises to be paid for by us in one of the highest Council Taxes in the country. Labour Leader GEORGE MICKLEWRIGHT voted himself a cool £30,000 a year while the seven Executive Members of his Cabinet will be getting £25,000 a year! Let's hear it for: DIANE BUNYAN, PETER HAMMOND, HELEN HOLLAND, CELIA LUKINS, JOHN BEES, JENNY SMITH and GRAHAM ROBERTSON. The sheer hypocrisy of these eight Labour Councillors, who will be coining it in while shedding crocodile tears about cuts in Education and Social Services expenditure, is beyond belief. The increases were supported by both Conservative and Liberal Democrat groups on the Council because their leaders will also be getting whopping increases. The whole package of increased allowances is expected to cost £500,000 a year!!! What a shower of greedy self-serving money grabbers! An even bigger rise could be coming next year, when THEY will review THEIR OWN wages again, and Micklewright's proposed pay may rise to a staggering £50,000 a year and Cabinet members £39,000 a year. At this rate Micklewright will be better paid than the Prime Minister! The whole Council - all parties - are responsible for this kick in the teeth for the people of Bristol, but as leader Micklewright must bear most responsibility. Quite how he can look the people of Knowle West, who voted for him, in the face is beyond us. But then, he very rarely does.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
THOSE CABINET MEMBER PROFILES IN FULL:
"GREEDY GEORGE": Micklewright cultivates his non-charismatic bumbling persona as some kind of self-imaged anti-hero. As he shuffles home to Southville with his brolly and briefcase George laps up the looks of contempt from his fellow pedestrians. But the minute he gets indoors he rips off his tweed jacket to reveal the Superman-style logo: "GREEDYMAN." " £50,000 SMACKEROOS A YEAR. YOU MUGS. YOU MUGS" chortles George rolling on the floor among the monopoly money with his string vest tucked into his Y-fronts. Finally Greedyman drifts into a fitful sleep. He dreams of his excited constituents in Knowle West, pouring onto Filwood Broadway in celebration of the wonderful news of his huge pay rise. "For He's A Jolly Good Fellow" echoes far into the night down to the VENTURE INN where a beaming Mao-style portrait of George adorns the wall. (Meticulous to a fault George makes a mental note mid-dream to have it moved further from the dartboard). Cheering crowds throng through the day carrying George shoulder high down LEINSTER AVENUE. Street urchins tug at his jacket crying "Gawd bless you Mr Micklewright Sir". "Well now my young ragamuffin" asks kindly George "why aren't you in school at this hour?". "Beg pardon Sir" comes the reply "but our school is closed down". "What villain could do such a heinous thing" raged George "give me the varlet's name". "The school was called Merry of the Wood, Sir, and twas you that closed it Mr Micklewright Sir 'cos there was no money".
Greedyman awakes in a cold sweat: Can it be true or was it a dream. Anxiously he searches for the council minutes. No, there it is in black and white: £30,000 A YEAR FOR GREEDYMAN! It's true!
"HER HIGHNESS" HELEN HOLLAND: Humourless, insufferably smug and condescending. Holland is continually surrounded by fawning acolytes who mutter "poor Helen" into her fevered brow. Because you see poor Helen is "so misunderstood". On Message enthusiast for every New Labour initiative, Holland is PRAWN DIMAROLO Mark II, and already eyeing up Doug Naysmith's North Bristol seat for the next General Election. Her Highness does not like your caring Bristolian. On recently seeing the local headline: "Her Majesty to visit Bath" Holland angrily phoned her appointments secretary shouting "You've double booked me again!"
"LARDASS LUKINS": Celia Lukins represents the Avonmouth ward on the City Council. She sits on the Port Authority (where she puts the other cheek we don't know!) and cosies up to the Avonmouth companies whose pollution gives her constituents the shortest lifespan in Bristol. Local Labour councillors in private rubbish Lukins but fail to tackle the Shirehampton Leviathan in public.
BRISTOLIAN READERS' POLL: IS CELIA "LARDASS" LUKINS THE FATTEST COUNCILLOR IN BRITAIN? SHOULD HER SEAT BE REVIEWED BY THE BOUNDARIES COMMISSION? Email
localnews4us@yahoo.co.uk with YES or NO Results next week! --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
BRISTOLIAN NEWS:
Record circulation again this week - 4,250 - shows just how popular your caring Bristolian has become. It also means it now costs us £60 a week to produce, so keep that sponsorship coming in! You can sponsor a whole issue (£60) or half an issue (£30), or a fiver will get you a sponsor's mention. If you're given the Bristolian in the street every week think about donating £1 next week so we can keep expanding. Target 10,000 by Easter. This week's sponsors:-
Half the Issue: Cheers to DISCO DARREN - Top Man!
The other half: Cheers to MARTIN, KEIRON, WILDEBEEST, ELLIE and SEX-EE-JOY.
Help also needed with distribution on the streets and round pubs and cafes. We can deliver to your door, so take a bundle for work/pub/street/café/college/shop/office/school/whatever/wherever. Feel free to increase our circulation on your boss's photocopier. News/stories/articles/tip-offs/rumours/gossip/confidential documents, all welcome by e-mail or post to our addresses below:
Box 3, Greenleaf Bookshop, 82 Colston Street
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
CRAPITA HORROR!
Can we be amongst the first to welcome CAPITA, one of the most useless companies ever, to our fair city? These clowns flog what they call "professional support services resources". In English, this means they get given lucrative contracts from daft government privatisation initiatives and then screw them up at a tidy profit for themselves, whilst creating misery for me and you. Unluckily for Bristol, CRAPITA have just been given £500m to run the TV licensing service based in Broadmead and employing 1,500 fine Bristolians. The staff there can now expect some good old-fashioned streamlining and downsizing. That means redundancies, pay cuts bullying management, impossible targets and, of course, huge funds available to pay consultants to tell them how to neutralise unions, but little money available to staff their offices properly. The Bristolian advises workers to get out now. CRAPITA are useless! Amongst the firm's recent successes was their contract to run the Individual Learning Account scheme for the Department of Education for £50m. This scheme was stopped in December by the Education Secretary, Estelle Morris, due to widespread fraud, abuse, poor administration and streams of complaints. A full-scale police fraud enquiry is currently under way. CRAPITA have also had lucrative accounts in Lambeth and Bromley to run the Councils' Housing Benefit Services, which the Government claimed had unacceptable back-logs of up to 3 months when run by local authorities. Enter CRAPITA and scenes of total chaos as backlogs went up to, er, 6 months-plus, and the systems had to be hurriedly returned to the councils (at a vast loss to taxpayers, naturally). But CRAPITA's piece-de-resistance must be their attempt to get their own employee, New Labour arselicker Lord Bassam, elected mayor of Brighton, claiming that a "strong leader who can personally commit" made it easier for firms like theirs to "develop partnerships". The people of Brighton weren't having any of this bollocks and booted CRAPITA and their boy Bassam firmly into touch. LET''S HOPE BRISTOL DOES THE SAME AND GETS RID OF THESE TOSSERS ASAP!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
SO FAREWELL THEN!
Richard Ridell, Director of Education. You were crap at your job. You were useless and incompetent. Good riddance Ridell! But even at your going you managed to coin yourself a year's fully paid leave to "write a book". Presumably with cloth pages and bunny rabbits on it!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
COP WATCH: BAZZA DUZZA GAZZA!
Step forward PC BAS JAVID of Southmead Police Station. Bas was fined £500 this week for assaulting a woman outside the RAJ RESTAURANT in KING STREET. Leanne Meaden was knocked to the ground and Javid arrested and found guilty. Our readers will be delighted to know that this will be no bar to Bas's future in the police force where he is shortly expecting promotion. Good work Bazza!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
SOUTHMEAD POOL HORROR!
Who says the City Council never listens? After years of asking, the people of Southmead are finally going to get a swimming pool. Only one problem, mind: The City Council aren't building it or running it. Instead, they've flogged some land to Whitbread PLC who will kindly build a swimming pool and sports facility for the people, or at least, those of them prepared to pay £600 a year to join one of their David Lloyd fitness centres. Who'll be using the place then? The people of Southmead or the middle-classes of Westbury-on-Trym. Don't bother to put the answer on a postcard. The Bristolian's discreet enquiries as to why the council couldn't build and run a cheap facility were met with the reply that "the City Council's probably spent all the available money for the area on the £1m bar for Labour Party members". Oh, and we haven't for a clue where the money from the land has gone. Not to Southmead, though.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
PUB WATCH by Man O' The Peep 'Ole
SUPPORT THE MINERS (again!):One of the most popular pubs in Long Ashton, THE MINERS ARMS, is due for demolition if developers get their way. The long history of selling superb cask conditioned beers and local cider will be lost if plans for the demolition of the public house and the erection of three luxury dwellings goes ahead. The Miners Arms has a place in the hearts of many villagers, citizens of Bristol, people of North Somerset, students, walkers and cyclists. The fate of the pub is in your hands: Please contact anyone willing to chain themselves to a bar stool for a good cause. This wanton act of developer vandalism cannot be allowed to go ahead! Contact Ms J Porter, North Somerset Planning Officer, on 01275 888 888 to voice your opposition. SAVE THE MINERS ARMS!
GIN PALACE CLOSED!Yet another of Bristol's finest pubs has shut down. The GIN PALACE in Old Market with the famous sloping floor is expected to remain closed for at least two months as major utility works are carried out. Reopening only a year ago as the Palace Hotel, it's had some memorable knees-ups. Let's hope that disturbing rumours reaching the Bristolian that it may in fact never re-open can be discounted. To lose both the Gin Palace and the Miners Arms would be a drinker's disaster!
SOUTHMEAD PUBLICANS FIGHT BACK AGAINST LABOUR'S BAR:Southmead landlords have been vocal in opposing unfair subsidised competition from the Labour Party's plans for a £1.5 million bar complex at the Southmead Development Trust, paid for by council tax payers. Quite how the local LABOUR MAFIA have managed to identify this as a £1.5 MILLION spending priority - as against Southmead's very real needs - is beyond anyone else.
Local people have pointed out that City Council Cabinet members - you know those struggling along on £25,000 a year expenses - JENNY SMITH and PETER HAMMOND are on the Trust's Board of Directors! This subsidised Labour Party Bar would put many struggling local pubs our of business.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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