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Gay Bishop

Gay Bishop | 23.09.2006 12:11

Please read this exciting edition of the Gay Bishop. Readin'g Sexiest news sheet.

Welcome to Gay Bishop – Reading’s scruffiest local rag

In this edition:

· Three Jeers for Reading Council – sneaky tricks and
stormy scenes as the Council decides on a one way
Inner Distributor Road.
· Not Fair – why did the council and the police
intervene to call off a community event?
· Participatory Budgets (but not for Reading) –
Forward thinking local councils around the world are
beginning to include citizens in decision making on
their budgets. Funnily enough, it won’t be happening
here in Reading.
· Carbon, Camping, and Coppers – reflections on the
Camp for Climate Action.
· Holy Troublemaking – A guide to forthcoming events
and actions


Three Jeers for Reading Council

You know the story. Council spends millions of pounds
of ratepayer’s money on a traffic scheme. It doesn’t
work. Well, it does work in that loads of traffic uses
it. Council are horrified because of use of road
traffic system. Therefore they think of a new scheme.
Costing even more money. And tear down the thing that
cost all that money in the first place to build a new
one. Marvellous. Everyone says it won’t work. Still
the council pursue. Repeat ad infinitum…

Reading Borough Council has its own fiasco in the
making. The Inner Distributor Road. You know this
story as well. It has been widely reported in the
local press and heralded as the dawn of a new age in
road traffic management. Yes: the scheme that turns
the infamous IDR into a one-way system.

What you may not know is that the council very
sneakily smuggled the vote to go ahead with the
one-way IDR scheme into a cabinet meeting instead of
allowing the full Council to vote. Local troublemaker
Bob O’Neill rumbled the ruse and spread the word to
concerned citizens around the town who wanted to have
their say on the matter. What you might have read
about in the local press was that a small demo was
subsequently held outside the Civic Office. What you
wouldn’t have read about is the protesting within the
council chamber. And some of the wonderful things we
learnt during the meeting.

Your Bishop was, of course, there, heckling with all
the other town’s folk as councillors poured out a
stream of nonsense about how great the scheme would be
for cyclists, the environment, the buses…

.... but what about the emissions? Well, carbon
dioxide and other vehicle exhaust gas emissions will
go up as a result of the proposals. John Howarth, the
councillor responsible for transport in Reading, told
the meeting that no one had ever said a one-way IDR
would cut congestion. In fact the council openly
admitted that journey times would be increased. Just
by a few minutes you understand...

An eye opening factette that caught the Bishop’s
attention was the admission that car drivers are
actually a minority group of commuters in Reading’s
rush hour traffic. The total number of car drivers is
less than the number of commuters who use other forms
of transport such as buses and cycles. So maybe we
need more cycle and bus lanes, Mr Howarth?

Apparently the scheme is our own fault anyway. If we
don’t like it, we should have opposed it. The council
very kindly set up a public consultation exercise all
about the IDR for us. What do you mean you weren’t
consulted? Two years ago the council slipped a
questionnaire in your council tax bill. Maybe you were
so astonished at the amount you were asked pay that
you didn’t notice this innovative form of democracy.
And if you didn’t live in Reading two years ago, well,
that’s just too bad.

During the meeting a number of other issues were
raised. Most startling was a member of the public
announcing to council chamber that one of our elected
representatives was so fascinated by the discussion
that he was browsing through his holiday brochures.

A heckle too far you might think. Not much happened to
the member of the public or the councillor, despite
the threats from the Mayor that if the members of the
public didn’t settle down they would be forced to
leave. “This is a meeting for the public to listen and
not to participate”, we were told. Democracy in
action, eh? Is this what we are selling to the rest of
the world?

Anyway, a vote took place and the pro-IDR Labour group
had the majority, therefore plans to go ahead with the
scheme that turns Reading into a giant roundabout are
set to go ahead in 2007.

How much is it going to cost? Well, it went from £8m
to £15million in the space of just a week. How much
will it cost by the time it is finished? Start the
bidding now.



Not Fair

Despite the name, Gay Bishop hasn’t got a lot of time
for organised religion of any creed, but we do feel
very strongly about diverse communities and the
importance of guaranteeing the rights of all sections
of the community.

Although there have been advances over the past couple
of decades, black and ethnic minority communities
still face considerable discrimination and now the
so-called “war on terror” has provided an excuse to
pick on another sector of the community: Muslims.

Reading likes to think of itself as a multicultural
town which has successfully integrated people from a
wide range of backgrounds. However, that hasn’t
stopped the good old council and the local police from
muscling in to ban a harmless community fair – on the
grounds that it was being organised by a group of
local Muslims.

The Islam Fair, planned for Prospect Park on Sunday
10th September, was called off at the last minute by
the council and the police who cited vague but
sinister sounding “heightened security and community
tensions” as their reason for cancelling the fair. As
a result, local people were denied the chance of
meeting the well known jihadist Sajid Varda - a
presenter on the Islam TV Channel; security threat
Brother Hassen Rasool – a singer and artist whose
website shows a photo of him with London’s mayor Ken
Livingstone, and 9-11 plotters Aa’shiq al-Rasul – a
group of classical spiritual singers. Thanks to
decisive action on behalf of the authorities,
countless youngsters were saved from the very real
dangers posed by a bouncy castle and fairground rides.

None of the community leaders who Gay Bishop spoke to
knew of any community tensions in Reading which could
justify calling off the fair, and there are concerns
that the decision to cancel the fair is just another
example of the hysteria and paranoia which Muslims in
Britain have to face nowadays.

Reading Council’s ruling Labour mafia, who have for
many years successfully cultivated the Muslim block
vote to keep themselves in power, are keeping their
heads well down on the issue. Local Muslims are
beginning to ask themselves just what exactly they are
getting out of this relationship.


Participatory Budgets (but not for Reading)

Earlier this year Green Party member Robert White
asked the leader of Reading Borough Council if the
Council would consider plans for introducing a
Participatory Budget. The suggestion was dismissed out
of hand – remember, in Reading you are allowed to
listen, but not participate.

Participatory budgets are a form of co-decision making
which were first introduced in the city of Porto
Alegre, the capital city of the state of Rio Grande do
Sul in Brazil, which has a population of 1.2 million
people. The process gives residents the opportunity to
decide what new investments the city should make.

In 2005 the London Borough of Harrow experimented with
the concept of participatory budgeting, running an
'open budget assembly' with 300 local residents.
Salford City Council has also experimented with
allowing limited participation in the budgetary
process.

The Porto Alegre participatory budget is drawn up
through the following processes and institutions:

· An annual public assembly is organised, at which
regional delegates and budget councillors are elected
and the thematic priorities for the following year are
chosen. This is followed by smaller meetings at which
the municipal government is called to account for the
past year and debate about the priorities for the next
year begins.
· A delegate’s forum, where decisions are made
regarding budget priorities based on meetings with
local groups, population size and statistically
measured needs.
· A budget council negotiates with delegates on the
final investment priorities of the council (the budget
council can be recalled by the delegates).

In her book ‘Reclaim the State’ Hilary Wainwright
points out that a survey by an organisation called
CIDADE found that most of the participants in the
Porto Alegre budgeting process are poor and that women
are generally well represented (although they are less
well represented among richer participants).

A study by the World Bank found that the benefits
experienced since implementation of the participatory
budget included a rise in access to water services
from 80% to 98%, a rise in those served by the
municipal sewage system from 46% to 85%, and a
doubling of the number of children enrolled in public
schools.

Participatory budgeting in Porto Alegre is limited in
what it can achieve: for a start, it only deals with a
small part of the overall budget (15%) and these are
decisions restricted to investment. As participant
Betania Alfonsi notes: ‘The budgetary process is not
enough…it only deals with investments… we have to
complement it by democratising and strengthening urban
planning’. Many participants feel that the budget
process should be extended to policy and strategy, and
the process has been criticised for not allowing
participants to comment on the city’s share of
repayment of Brazil’s overseas debt to the
International Monetary Fund.

Ubiratan de Souza, who oversaw the budget process in
Porto Alegre, argues that ‘The demand for a nationwide
participatory budget is now a fundamental part of the
struggle to change the direction taken by our Workers
Party government’.

Asked what he thought the benefits of the
Participatory Budget in Reading would be, Rob White
said: “I think that it would help to engage people
with "the system". It would be a positive step for
people to think about local priorities and where money
would be best spent”.


Carbon, camping, and coppers

At the end of August hundreds of people gathered in
the shadows of Drax power station (the largest single
emitter of carbon dioxide in the country) for the Camp
for Climate Action. The Gay Bishop was there, along
with an assortment of environmental activists, crusty
hippies, anarchists, and local residents who had come
along to find out more or to drum up support for the
campaign to stop an opencast coal mine in the
vicinity.

The programme for the camp described it as being “many
things to many people”. This was perhaps both its
strength and its weakness.

Some campers expressed concern that not enough
demonstrations or direct actions had been arranged
around the camp, while others were frustrated that the
mass action to close down Drax would dominate the
camp, leaving insufficient time to discuss strategy.
This confusion over what the camp was for also seemed
to put people off from going along, and attendance at
the camp was not as high as the organisers had hoped.
The camp did, however, bring together groups of people
who might not otherwise work together.

The themes of the workshops varied: basic climate
science and campaigns around climate issues,
discussions about contraction and convergence and
carbon trading, and tactics for blockading.
Discussions about what we wanted and how to get there
were particularly illuminating in highlighting some of
differences and common areas of opinion held by
campers.

A mass action on Thursday with the aim of shutting
down Drax power station predictably failed, although
it did succeed in getting a significant amount of
positive press. A number of demonstrators were able to
get into the grounds and some managed to lock onto the
lighting towers (although these are not essential to
the running of the power station). There were also
what appeared to be two attempts to kill a number of
protesters by an enraged local farmer driving a
tractor. A group called Reclaim Power succeeded in
shutting down the gates to both Hartlepool nuclear
power station and the BAe Systems weapons factory in
Brough, North Humberside, which were also blockaded by
a noise demo.

The camp was run in an autonomous manner with
everybody who attended taking responsibility for
running the camp. The space was split into different
regions based around different geographical regions,
with each region having its own kitchen which became a
social focal point. To avoid large and difficult
camp-wide discussions each region had its own
neighbourhood meeting to discuss how the region would
be run and camp-wide issues such as how to deal with
the police (see below). Delegates from each region
went along to a spokes-council for the whole camp to
represent the views agreed at the regional meeting.

The police had a constant presence outside the camp
and around Drax power station and requested/demanded
that they should be allowed to enter the camp to
patrol the site. Although campers were opposed to them
coming onto the site there were strongly held
differences of opinion on how the camp should react to
the police.

Some felt that the police should be allowed to patrol
the site long as they were escorted around the camp
under strict conditions (it was even suggested that
the police should be invited to attend a workshop so
they could understand why we were there). Campers
taking this view seemed to want to ensure that the
workshop programme was not disrupted. Others felt that
the police should not be allowed on the site at all,
because some activities were being prepared that were
not legal, and because the camp was an autonomous
space.

A decision was eventually made to allow the police to
enter the camp under strict conditions.
Unsurprisingly, once allowed on site the police
demanded increased access, creating more friction with
those opposed to their presence. This resulted in a
small demo at the gates opposing the police presence
and the police were not allowed on the site again.
Ultimately it seemed that not allowing the police onto
the site proved more effective than trying to find a
compromise.

The camp organisers still need to raise £4,000 to pay
for marquees etc that were used during the week.
Donations can be made on the climate camp website
www.climatecamp.org.uk. There will be a meeting in
Manchester on October 14-15 to reflect on the camp and
decide how to move forward.


Holy Troublemaking!
Gay Bishop’s guide to what’s going down

Reading International Festival
Throughout October
This year’s festival takes climate change as its
theme, and there are a wide variety of events for
everyone from the not-so-active to the hyperactive.
Details:  bente@risc.org.uk or 0118 958 6692

‘Voices Raised for Peace’ Singing workshop
Learn and sing songs from around the world with the
theme of peace and resistance.
Sunday 8th October 2.15 – 5.00 pm
RISC Centre, 35-39 London Street, Reading (enter via
rear entrance)
£5 waged / £3 low income
Groaners welcome!

Sack Parliament – October 9th 2006
1 pm Houses of Parliament, London
Authoritarian government, ineffective opposition, and
mass public protest ignored. There’s only one option
left: Sack Parliament! MPs and Lords return from their
summer recess on October 9th. Stop them from getting
back inside Parliament to do any more harm.
Further details: www.sackparliament.org.uk

Public meeting: "Think global act local - tackling
climate change in Reading"
Monday 16th October 7:30 - 9:30pm
Upstairs at RISC Centre, 35-39 London Street, Reading.
Continue the process of building a diverse movement to
tackle climate change and highlight opportunities to
work together locally on this issue.
Organised by Reading Green Party: 0118 950 4062

New peace camp at Aldermaston Atomic Weapons
Establishment Aldermaston.
From noon on the last full weekend of each month; next
camps 23-24 September, 28-29 October, 25-26 November
2006.
Bluebell Wood near AWE West Gate car park.
Details:
 http://www.aldermastonwatch.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk
0845 4588 368

Send details of your events to us and we'll add them
to our listings next time.


So just who are this Gay Bishop lot anyway?

Gay Bishop is produced on a voluntary basis by an open
collective of local people and activists who want to
shine the spotlight on the news stories that local
politicians would prefer stayed in the dark - and get
to the bottom of the ones they spin onto the front
pages! Our roots are in the direct action movements,
but we welcome new members who support our principles
– please get in touch if you would like to get
involved or want more information. Our email address
is  readinggaybishop@yahoo.co.uk or you can write to us
at Gay Bishop, c/o RISC, 35-39 London Street, Reading,
RG1 3JE (but we prefer email!).

We put out Gay Bishop on a roughly monthly basis, but
as we’re only a small group and aren’t always the most
dynamic bunch in the world (read lazy, really lazy,
and in the pub too much), we need your help to do
this! We need ideas for stories, writers, people with
experience at using the web, and donations. We also
want to know what you’re up to, so please send us
details of forthcoming events to include in our ‘Holy
Troublemaking’ section.

Most important of all, we need new readers – so if you
liked Gay Bishop, forward it to your mates and
subscribe to receive future editions. To subscribe,
just send a message to
 reading_gay_bishop-subscribe@yahoogroups.co.uk.

And finally, we’d like your feedback. What did you
think of this edition of Gay Bishop? Essential reading
or boring old bollocks? Let us know and tell us how we
can make improvements so that our next edition is even
better.


Disclaimer: Gay Bishop warns readers that going to
along Council meetings may leave you going round and
round in circles…

Gay Bishop
- e-mail: reading_gay_bishop-subscribe@yahoogroups.co.uk

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