The Bristol Blogger

Today is a global day of action for Mansour Osanloo and Mahmoud Salehi, two Iranian trade unionists being held in prison by the Iranian theocracy on charges of “endangering national security”.

This pair are unlikely to get the publicity afforded other less savoury Middle Eastern political activists by some sections of the so-called left who no doubt will be along soon to claim that solidarity with these imprisoned Iranian trade unionists is in fact part of a long-term Zionist/Imperialist/Neo-Conservative conspiracy to launch a nuclear attack on the peace-loving democracy of Iran.

Here’s the message of solidarity:

Thousands of workers and citizens are raising their voices today worldwide. We want Mansour Osanloo and Mahmoud Salehi out of jail immediately and unconditionally. We want workers’ rights respected in Iran without any delay. Organised by the ITUC and ITF with the full support of Amnesty International, many events are taking place simultaneously around the world to back our demands.

In Wellington, Sydney, Tokyo, Seoul, Bangkok, Jakarta, New Delhi, Istanbul, Basra, Amman, the West Bank, Tunis, Casablanca, Geneva, Brussels, Oslo, London and Toronto, actions are confirmed and many will visit the Iranian missions with our message, that the Iranian authorities cannot obstruct the genuine workers’ movement and jail these unionists for their activities. We regret the charges set against them. They are not a threat to the national security. Worse still, their health conditions are deteriorating.

The ILO’s Freedom of Association Committee report from June 2007 stresses that the Iranian government must take “all measures to ensure that trade unions can be formed and function without hindrance, including through the de facto recognition of the union”.

In building-up to the International Action Day, the ITF’s inspectors in many countries have boarded Iranian vessels in their respective ports with our message. LabourStart has gathered 5,000 signatures on an online petition. Earlier in January, protest by the Indonesian trade unions forced its government to postpone a Presidential visit to Iran. Concerns are being raised in the national and European parliaments. Many organisations have sent their protest letters. Since Mansour Osanloo was brutally abducted 8 months ago, worldwide protests have not stopped. On 6 March, they will culminate into a mass global demonstration but this will not be the end.

Free Osanloo now!
Free Salehi now!
Respect the workers’ rights in Iran!

Our message of solidarity with the Iranian workers is loud and clear. It will continue to resound until our objectives are achieved.

International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC)
International Transport Workers Federation (ITF)
Amnesty International

Life long socialist Jerry Hicks, the former AEU/Amicus convenor at Rolls Royce in Bristol, who was dismissed in dubious circumstances in 2005, has quit the Socialist Workers Party (SWP), describing the Respect Party in which they are key coalition partners as “in crisis”.

Hicks, who polled 25% of the vote as a Respect candidate in the Lockleaze ward in 2006, forcing the Labour Party into third place, intends to remain a member of Respect and has issued the following statement:

To the SWP Central Committee and membership: From Jerry Hicks:

Respect is in crisis. How did we arrive at where we are now?

Was it George Galloway’s letter sent out on 23rd August 2007 to all Respect National Council members stating some observations, expressing some criticisms and making some suggestions? Or was it the hysterical reaction by the SWP leadership in the weeks that followed? Despite apocalyptical warnings and assertions of “no capitulation” in the SWP road shows that took place in September, virtually all of Galloway’s solutions were agreed but only after weeks of vile and damaging blood letting.

On receiving the letter of August 23rd there were two ways of dealing with it. We had a choice to defuse or to ignite. We, i.e. the SWP leadership, chose to do the latter and have been fanning the flames ever since.

I attended the Respect National Council meeting 22nd September 2007 where it became evident for the first time to the overwhelming majority of the council that there have been very serious and deeply disturbing problems for nearly two years.

Every end has a beginning and a number of soul searching questions need to be asked.

As the SWP is by far the single largest organisation in Respect, should it not then shoulder the greatest responsibility to ensure that Respect not only survives but grows, flourishes and prospers?

How can it be that the national Respect membership numbers only 2500 when the SWP membership is nearly 6000. Obviously fewer than a 1/3 of the SWP membership are even in Respect?

When was the last time we as individual members of the SWP took part in a campaign or union activity and identified ourselves as Respect?

When did we bring anyone - friend, family, colleague or supporter of a campaign that we are involved in to Respect events or activities?

When was the last time as an individual we recruited or even asked anyone to join Respect?

Who is responsible for allowing this when the official line is that the SWP throws its full weight behind Respect?

Why have so many SWP members not even joined Respect yet are called to go to meetings around the country to discuss Respect and are now being urged to join Respect and to get delegated to Respect conference! See email below sent out on the 17th October 2007…………….

RESPECT ANNUAL CONFERENCE
‘The Respect annual conference is going to be very important this year. We are urging comrades do the following:

You can only get delegated to Respect conference if you are a registered member. You MUST be a paid-up member by THIS FRIDAY, 19 October .Deadline for resolutions is Friday 19 October.
Deadline for the election of delegates is Sunday 4 November. Once again we are urging as many SWP members as possible to get elected to the Respect Conference. If you have any questions please contact John Rees or the SWP National Office. Martin Smith, SWP National Organiser.’

We, in the SWP also need to ask ourselves the following questions.

Did we play any part in reaching this disastrous situation or is it all due to George Galloway’s letter of August 23rd 2007? When did it all start to go wrong? Was it August 23rd or long before that?

Who or how many knew of the issues? Why was there no debate or discussion within the SWP or Respect National Council immediately problems began to arise to try to resolve the differences and thereby avoid being where we are now?

In my view the responsibility rests with the SWP leadership for this situation of crisis to have been developing over many months, even years, whilst in the SWP we were told nothing.

Is Bristol different and is this only a London thing?

Lots of people in Bristol Respect have done lots of things but we only stood for one council seat in this year’s May elections. Let’s ask ourselves why. Was it because we had grown? Was it because we did not want to stand in any other ward?

Or, was it in part because not enough people in the SWP in Bristol had either joined Respect or done one single thing to help Respect?

Whilst we might not have the upheaval of Tower Hamlets, our own Annual General Meeting (AGM) held on 27th September 2007 was almost ruined by our full time SWP organiser who wanted to call all the SWP members out of the room 5 minutes before the AGM was due to start, leaving non SWP Respect members (a third of the meeting) sat there not knowing what the hell was going on.

That potential disaster was averted because I refused to let it happen, but it would have without my intervention. Who would bet that this is not happening elsewhere.

Galloway was and is a maverick, warts and all. We all knew this. I am not making excuses just stating the blindingly obvious.

The Big Brother experience was considered by many a mistake but his performance before the US Senate was unrivalled and made the name of Respect known across the globe.

To describe Galloway as right wing is farcical. To vilify him and demonise him as the enemy beggars belief.

The 27 members of the Respect National Council who are also critical of the SWP do not represent a “Galloway faction” as is being presented, nor are any of them right wing or witch hunters as we are being asked to believe. They include people like Ken Loach, Linda Smith, Victoria Brittain, Salma Yaqoob and Yvonne Ridley. They are all socialists, they are all remarkable people in their own right and they are all senior members of Respect.

I feel that our SWP leadership has created an atmosphere where an observation made is described as a criticism, where any criticism is taken as an attack which is transposed as being ‘right wing’.

Are we really supposed to believe that we were in an ‘all or nothing’, ‘them and us’ situation where everything we the SWP say must be true and that everything the ‘other side’ says must be lies. Everything we the SWP do is right but everything they do is wrong!

Frankly, as in life or politics this is ludicrous.
After having overreacted to Galloway’s letter in August, the SWP leadership rallied its membership to emergency party councils and road shows, seeking votes of endorsements predicated on half truths and contorted facts to justify their position, in a dishonest and degrading manner.

When sound judgement was needed we got poor analysis, when honesty and frankness were required we got a call for blind loyalty and expulsions.

The situation has been appallingly handled by our SWP leadership, with a series of misjudgements eventfully reaching a position of a self fulfilling prophecy.

Have we just thrown away a fantastic opportunity? Are we now dashing the hopes of millions having given others and ourselves a glimpse of what is or was possible?

Was it right that so many were ready to join the chorus of catcalls vilifying some of Respect’s brightest stars without more thoroughly questioning the denouncements.

I have seen things that I can no longer accept.
I have heard things from meetings I have been at described in a way that I don’t recognise.

No longer will these things be done in my name.

For the reasons that I have set out, as from this moment I am resigning from the SWP.

To those of you who will feel let down I offer an unreserved apology, to those who will feel disappointed I am truly sorry, to those who could not care less and who may from here on invent their own distorted version I wish you well in your world.

We all have to live with our own decisions and I know I am leaving the SWP with my integrity and honour intact and feel sure that I will be able to sleep well at night, safe in the knowledge that I did what I did for the right reasons at the right time and with the best intentions.

Jerry Hicks.

Hat tip: Socialist Unity

Having less-than-adroitly reneged on one set of ridiculous and uncosted election promises - around waste collection - through the use of a so-called citizen’s jury, a process handily managed by a Labour-friendly organisation in exchange for a fat fee, Helen Holland’s Labour administration can now begin to start reneging on their next ludicrous and uncosted election promise.

This is of course the entirely undeliverable guarantee they made not to privatise any more of the city’s home care service. After a six month silence from social services supremo Peter Hammond - who was presumably hoping we’d all forget about his daft promises in that amount of time - this last week has suddenly seen a mild flurry of activity-like noises around the home care issue.

Specifically, a document has been released, apparently by social services director Annie Hudson, outlining proposals from something called the ‘Home Care Stakeholder Working Group’.

They have basically made five proposals:

1. That a short term assessment and reablement service be established to deliver care for up to 6 weeks with approximately 70 in-house staff. The argument being that intensive reablement immediately after discharge from hospital or crisis can substantially improve independence (and therefore need for care) in the longer term.
2. That approximately 300 staff in the HCBU (Home Care Business Unit) should then aim to deliver approximately 6500 hours of service per week. In order to achieve this the HCBU will have to make extensive business efficiencies and aim to have only 15% non contact time.
3. That the HCBU should only take packages of care which are at least 5 hours in duration per week. And it’s worth noting that the HCBU would not be the sole provider of these types of packages either but rather they’d be a market partner along with the independent sector.
4. That the HCBU develops an area of growth, above the 6500 hours, delivering VSH (Very Sheltered Housing) care and support.
5. That domestic only services (i.e. Shopping, cleaning and laundry) should be provided elsewhere and not by the HCBU.

Excellent eh? But what the hell does it all mean? Well, remembering that sage advice of Woodward and Bernstein let’s “follow the money”.

And here’s what Ms Hudson’s report says elsewhere:

13. The Home Care Futures Project Board chaired by the Director is carefully considering and costing these proposals in order to assess their viability, and impact of the wider care market

14. . . . The financial implications of the proposals made by the Home Care Stakeholder Working Group are currently being evaluated.

It is not possible at this stage to provide specific details of the HR implications

What’s happened then, during this last six months of silence, is that idiot Hammond has set up two committees - the ‘Home Care Stakeholder Working Group’ and the ‘The Home Care Futures Project Board’ - despite telling the Cancer:

“I can also state clearly there will not be a select committee to oversee the progress of home care as I feel that would hold things up.”

Presumably his theory being that two committees with the name changed are faster than one then? And in this time idiot Hammond has managed to convert his series of uncosted election promises into a series of uncosted aspirations instead!

Brilliant work Peter. Any idea when we might get a proper costed policy? And how much are you overspending by in the meantime?

With a crisis meeting of the Avon Fire & Rescue Authority, called by maverick Avonmouth Tory Spud Murphy, due to take place on Friday about the notorious “gay fire fighter incident” on The Downs, the silence on the liberal-left of the city is becoming deafening.

With the exception of Lib Dem councillor, Tim Kent, who sits on the authority and has made a dutiful, timid and illiberal statement of support for his beleagured authority on his blog, there’s been a total silence on the matter from progressives in the city.

They seem to neither want to back the fire service’s rather strange and under-fire equalities policies nor admit that these kind of policies - that have been tirelessly promoted by politicians of the liberal-left - are in fact failing to achieve what they’re supposed to.

The silence of the local MP for The Downs area, Stephen Williams is particularly intriguing. As the only openly gay Lib Dem MP you might have thought he would have some strong views on this matter. Evidently not.

What are they all afraid of? Why are they remaining silent and handing the initiative to Murphy and The Cancer and the right on this issue?

Anyway here’s The Blogger’s take . . .

Is an unholy alliance of the gay lobby and the diversity industry making this city a less tolerant place in the name of equality?

It’s never really bothered The Blogger - in common with the vast majority of Bristolians - that there’s a section of grown men in this city who regularly visit The Downs to play with each others’ willies in the bushes there.

Until very recently there was an unspoken, unwritten, unlegislated and peculiarly Bristolian kind of tolerance observed over what happened up there. None of us have ever been formally told or asked to accept that gay men use the Downs for sex but most of us just took it for granted as something that happens. A little bit pathetic maybe - but not really worth the effort of making much of a fuss about.

The result is that a fragile consensus has quietly been built on this issue over many years. The prevailing attitude seems to be: so what? Yes this stuff is going on but it’s not really that important and it shouldn’t be stopped or prevented because it’s victimless crimes being committed anyway and a broadly liberal attitude on issues like this helps to maintain good community relations.

This unspoken consensus also seemed to include the police who have for years remained very low-key and have appeared to turn a blind eye to a lot of stuff happening on the Downs; the local authority and its Downs Committee who have done very little to see the law enforced; obviously the majority of gay men in the city who appeared to enjoy the freedom they had and, of course, the many, many ordinary Bristolians who have also quietly turned a blind eye and instead had a wry smile or a laugh about these “goings-on” on The Downs that are technically illegal.

This consensus always seemed to work pretty well. Bristol is a relatively tolerant place for gay people. There’s never been crazed mobs of homophobes stalking the streets - or The Downs. Homophobic attacks are few and far between. Even the local press was not especially unsupportive - or at least it was politely silent on matters of sexuality pertaining to The Downs.

All-in-all Bristol might not have the buzz of London or Manchester but it is, on the whole, a pretty tolerant and accepting place for gay people to live and work. Recently Times columnist Matthew Parris said: “In the whole history of mankind there has been no better, luckier, time or place to be gay than Britain in 2007.” Is there any reason why Parris would not include Bristol in that conclusion?

Well that seems to be the case being made by the local branch of gay lobbyist charity The Terrence Higgins Trust (THT); sections of the Avon Fire & Rescue Service’s senior management team firmly in the grip of the latest “equalities” policies and the Trot-influenced Fire Brigades Union (FBU).

It would have been hard to miss the fuss during the last few weeks over the four fire fighters from Avonmouth Blue Watch who were disciplined for bringing the service into disrepute and for the misuse of fire equipment amid hysterical allegations of homophobia from their own managers.

To begin with, these events have turned the city into a national laughing stock. Just about every national newspaper amusedly reported the fact that the local Terrence Higgins Trust had formally complained to the Avon Fire & Rescue Service about a fire crew who may have disturbed some gay men having sex on The Downs one evening.

Remarkably Avon Fire & Rescue Service upheld this complaint and after initially suspending the four fire fighters for three months, they have now disbanded the crew, heavily fined them and ordered them to attend some wanky Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transexual awareness course last week.

These actions, we’re publicly assured by the management of Avon Fire & Rescue Service and by the silence of the Terrence Higgins Trust and FBU - who appear to be providing nil public support to its own members - are all about putting a stop to homophobia and helping create a more tolerant environment here in Bristol.

What a load of bollocks! They’re achieving the precise opposite. The people behind this nonsense - described rather colourfully by one national newspaper reader as “worthless over important idiots who I assume are recruited from mental asylums somewhere in outer space” - are likely to make the city a more homophobic place. They are also likely to have helped create a much less liberal policing and criminal justice environment for gay people in Bristol. What a result!

This has come about because the kind of people working in these charities, lobby organisations and in equalities positions in the public sector generally have completely lost their bearings on these issues.

Generally underemployed (what the hell does a public sector equalities worker actually do all day that is of any productive use whatsoever?), badly educated humanities graduates, they don’t seem capable of even acknowledging - let alone understanding - the consensus the city has quietly but effectively built over many years around this very issue they’re blundering into.

For most of us, the tolerant attitude the city has always shown towards the gay community and their activities on The Downs also applies to the four fire fighters. In our tolerant city, few people seriously view the fire fighters’ childish behaviour as “homophobic” or in any way related to a hate crime and therefore see no need to punish them.

The simple fact is that it doesn’t matter and never will matter to the majority of people in this city that four firefighters from Avonmouth Blue Watch went up to The Downs one evening and right-royally ripped the piss out of a bunch grown men up there playing with each others’ willies in the bushes.

And perhaps with some reservations, most Bristolians were probably equally happy to tolerate both of these groups and their behavior and don’t really want anyone to be punished for anything

This is not, however, the view of the Avon Fire & Rescue Service/THT/FBU equalities set who couldn’t give a toss about any consensus we might already have as a city and instead want to impose a new one - of their devising - upon us. Naturally, in an attempt to stifle any dissent they are likely to receive, anyone who dares to question their arrogance in doing this is - stifle the yawns please - obviously HOMOPHOBIC!!! themselves.

And what they seem to want to impose is a regime in the city where we are forced to respect the right of certain groups to use the Downs as a sex playground as we always have done anyway - while we must not tolerate the childish activities of another section of men who use the place as a bit of a school playground.

How reasonable and fair is that?

The problem here is that this equalities worldview being imposed upon us is based on a theory rather than on the reality of what goes on in this city. And since when have theories been reasonable or fair? Their theory - regardless of the empirical truth - claims that homophobia, racism and sexism are rife in this city. It then randomly attributes the blame for this, with scant evidence, to the working classes - characterising them as crude racist, wife-beating, homophobes.

Since, rather conveniently, this group can’t answer back very easily, it’s simple enough - for those who can - to then argue that what we need are a whole lot of new, wonderful equalities industry values imposed upon us for our own good.

It’s a nice, simple - if crude - theory. It’s got an easily identifiable, unfashionable group to blame who - handily - have no influential voice to answer back with and who no-one’s interested in defending anyway. It keeps the wannabe sophisticated and well-educated middle class liberals who think they’re better than everyone else feeling morally superior and it also creates a lucrative little mini-industry, funded from the public purse, of job-for-life consultants, workers, trainers, policy wonks and academics especially for these middle class idiots.

But what their theory doesn’t do, unfortunately, is engage with reality. This city is not especially homophobic. Neither are the vast majority of the people in it. The opposite is true. This, as we have already seen, is a very tolerant city towards gay people and some of their unusual habits.

So why has this small, noisy, opinionated authoritarian clique of people taken it upon themselves to claim differently and deliberately set out to wreck a long-standing consensus and try to impose a new set of values upon us? And why can’t these authoritarian idiots see that it isn’t possible to impose tolerance from above in the way they want? It will miserably fail as events over the last few week have demonstrated.

Firstly, the equalities set have completely failed to carry their argument, whatever the fuck it is, to the city. All they have done is create uproar and mass sympathy for the fire fighters while garnering significant levels of negative publicity for Bristol’s gay community. This has been further compounded by their sneering “we know best” high-handed attitude towards virtually the whole of the city who happen to disagree with them quite virulently over their actions.

But this is not just a bit of a PR disaster for the fire service. Their efforts to tackle the homophobia they insist is rife in the city have completely backfired. There’s been more negativity and public condemnation towards gay men in Bristol in the last few weeks - since this story broke - than there’s been in the last year.

This episode is not doing the city’s gay men any favours at all. Neither is it doing much for the city’s gay charities and support groups. THT has gone, in the space of a few days, from being a quite serious, reasonably well-respected organisation to, at best, a laughing stock and, at worst, actively disliked.

THT have certainly made their job supposedly working on behalf of gay men in this city a whole lot harder if not impossible. Who’s gonna seriously give a toss about the views of a bunch of people who seem happy to stand by and cost working men with families their jobs over a load of really petty bullshit?

THT, the gay lobby and the rest of the equalities set also need to be aware that things might get even worse. An awful lot of needless attention has now been drawn to gay men and their activities in Bristol. Who would bet against a backlash? And it’ll be interesting to see who the equalities set try to blame for that (step forward now please that all-purpose blame machine - THE MEDIA, or worse, THE DAILY MAIL!!!!).

The other thing the equalities set has managed to do through their own stupidity is to more-or-less force the police to reevaluate their policing policy on The Downs. Within hours of the story hitting The Evening Cancer last week an anonymous police officer was claiming:

“Having worked as a police officer at Redland (which covers the downs) officers were warned off some years ago about driving past and shining spotlights from vehicles into the hedges (to detect offences of illegal acts). This was, again, following complaints from the terrence Higgins trust. Can I suggest you contact Avon & Somerset Constabulary and ask if officers are allowed to ‘pro-actively’ patrol this area to tackle what are actually illegal acts (sex in public). Robberies and assaults do go on at that location because of the nature of what goes on there but many are unreported. The reason the firefighters were not reported to the Police is probably because the police would not pursue such an allegation.”

In the circumstances the coppers have had little choice but to issue denials and reassurances to the public that they do in fact police The Downs as they would anywhere else. The Saturday before last the police told the Cancer (and have reiterated the point on DCI Andy Bennett’s blog):

“Police patrol the Downs in Bristol and deal with incidents as they would with any other area. In fact such is the presence of officers in the area a substantial number of cannabis warnings are issued to people using the Downs.
Whenever incidents of lewd acts are reported to police they are fully investigated and last year saw 250 people arrested throughout the force for such offences including and ranging from outraging public decency to kerb crawling.
Officers will not hesitate to deal with offences positively whenever they are formerly reported to police. “

250 arrests for these kind of offences across the whole force area is piffling and does not reflect anything like the level of activity on The Downs. This seems to confirm that a “light touch” approach has indeed been taken to the policing of the area. There’s little doubt Avon & Somerset could get 250 convictions - if not more - in 6 months on the Downs alone if it were heavily policed, which now looks the grim possibility given the recent public outcry.

Indeed a new consensus seems to be emerging, which The Blogger admittedly has some sympathy with, where if the equalities set want to be intolerant and start threatening ordinary people’s livelihoods in order to impose their set of rather peculiar views, then a lot of ordinary Bristolians in turn are going to start asking why their values, backed up by law, aren’t being imposed. If one form of behaviour must be punished why not another?

So it rather looks like the fire service and their equalities friends have created a new zero sum game for the city to play - “you call us homophobes - we’ll call you criminals” - where we all end up living in a less tolerant and fun place.

That’s some result.

The acceptable face of modern firefighting

You’ve got to have at least some sympathy for these former members of the Blue Watch at Avonmouth fire station who have been disciplined, demoted and had their wages docked for disturbing a gay sex session on the Downs as reported today in the Evening Cancer.

As part of their punishment, the poor sods also have to attend a two-day equality training event at the Holland House Hotel on Redcliffe Way.

What a nightmare. Two days being lectured at by some bearded moralising tosser with a diversity agenda. What’s the betting this “facilitator” turns out to have something to do with Bristol Labour Party or their equally clueless mates at the T&G.

Pity these poor firemen. Nobody, regardless of what they might have done, deserves two days of the likes of Peter Hammond, Derek Pickup, his ridiculous hypocrite missus Esther, or any other daft leftie on the equalities gravy train ranting politically correct codswallop straight out of the 1980s at them.

Aren’t there human rights laws to prevent this kind of thing?

A letter in Saturday’s Evening Cancer from this new UNITE super-union has a crack at Bristol North West’s Tory candidate Charlotte Leslie.

They accuse her of “breathtaking cant and hypocrisy” over her campaign for a better Bristol bus service because it was the Tory Party that deregulated and privatised local bus services in the 80s and created the current hopeless mess. Fair comment.

UNITE even quote Thatcher disapprovingly:

A man who, beyond the age of 30, finds himself on a bus can count himself as a failure.

Only problem here is that it’s now very well known that there’s no record of Thatcher ever having said this. What’s UNITE’s source for this quote? Or can we assume they don’t really know what they’re on about?

Although on the issue of the buses UNITE do make some good points about privatision and deregulation and how commercial considerations and profit have taken precedence over providing a decent service for the public while drivers’ wages have fallen to about half the average wage since the 80s.

However their partisanship is ridiculous. What’s with the party political point scoring? The Labour Party has had, locally 20 years, and nationally over 10 years to sort out these useless deregulated bus services and has done nothing.

Indeed the Labour Party has not reversed any Thatcherite privatisations at all in the last ten years and they have even introduced private sector reforms into healthcare and education services, which is way beyond anything Thatcher dared do.

So why no criticism of the Labour Party from UNITE? Why condemn one set of Thatcherites but not another? Do they seriously believe Labour are working in the interests of their bus driving members or the wider bus using public?

If they do then they are cretins.

Our old friend Steve Comer appears to have got himself a new gig after failing to become the leader of the council. The leader of Bristol’s Lib Dems, who also moonlights on the National Executive of the alleged left wing, anti-privatisation PCS (Public and Commercial Services) union, has now pitched up as the Chair of the city council’s Human Resources Committee which, probably, comes with an increase in his councillor allowances.

So what’s this champion of workers rights up to now then? Er, he’s cutting the income of some of the city council’s lowest paid workers of course.

At a meeting of his committee on Thursday night, Comer cheerfully removed pensionable allowances for heating, lighting and rent from residential caretakers and removed shift allowances from security workers, mobile caretakers and waste disposal crane drivers.

He also helpfully explained to the out-of-pocket workers that their pay cut was not a cut at all as far as he was concerned because “the aim isn’t to save money”. It was simply a matter of having to harmonise things in order to avoid expensive, equal-pay law suits he claimed.

Comer’s cut-free cuts are likely to have a devastating affect on the finances of the workers involved however. In some cases it will take the workers back to their pay levels of the early 1990s. One Residential Caretaker told Comer:

“Anne one of my colleagues, has kept her pay details going back to 1992 her take home pay was £152 per week – if this goes through I will be left with £152 per week in 2007 (after council tax, rent, water, lighting payments). This is not taking into consideration inflation and the fact that my £152 per week is worth less now than it did in 1992.”

Crane drivers at Days Road dump, meanwhile, had this to say about Comer’s cutless cuts:

“We are disgusted and outraged by HR’s intention to remove our shift working allowance, which would result in crane drivers (who all have wives and children) losing approximately £2,500 p.a. from their wages.”

Radical firebrand and man of the people Comer responded, “Those that find themselves losing out are not entitled to shift payments because they don’t work the hours that qualify.”

Neatly sidestepping the fact that he’s just changed the qualification rules to suit himself. What a shining example of modern trade unionism he is.

In Saturday’s Evening Cancer, a Bristolian had this to say to the likes of Comer and his fellow committee member, T&G union hypocrite and Labour Party Executive member John Bees:

“It’s small wonder that the city council is perceived as second rate by Bristolians, when it sacrifices its best ambassadors - not council officers on inflated salaries with work/life balance benefits, and not executive members on £40,000-plus, doing a job that was at one time unpaid (no review for them, I suspect) - but the low-paid.”

Hear! Hear! Comer and Bees might do well to think about this and perhaps, maybe, start to turn their Human Resources guns on some of these hopeless superannuated council officers on inflated salaries sharing out the work/life balance benefits.

They could start with Heather Tomlinson. Heather earns in excess of £120k a year running the city’s education department. And what happened to her recently when it was announced that the Redland Green School building project, which she is directly accountable for, was £5m - or 15% - over budget?

Fuck all that’s what. We have to pay people like Tomlinson a small fortune in wages - we’re told by Comer, Bees and the rest of the idiot brigade - in order to get the best. Then when these people demonstrably prove they’re not the best - in fact they prove they’re not even competent - nothing happens.

There should be no ifs and no buts about this. Tomlinson’s record is just not good enough. Her results in raising attainment in Bristol schools have been marginal at best; her strategy to force as many Bristol schools as possible out of LEA control and into academy status is obvious and simplistic and now she’s gone and pissed FIVE MILLION POUNDS of our money down the toilet because she can’t do her job properly.

She should bloody go! And if she hasn’t got the decency to hold her hands up and take responsibility - as her excessive salary demands - then Comer and Bees need to stop playing the macho tough-guys by pissing on the poor and get some real fire in their bellies and give her boot.

If it was down to The Blogger he’d dress the useless, over-privileged, yacht-owning money-waster in sackcloth, stick a “I’ve wasted your money” sign ’round her neck and personally march her through the streets of Bristol to the city limits encouraging people to throw rotten fruit and buckets of raw sewage at her as she goes…

But there’s no chance of that. Instead the city council are paying consultants - despite having an allegedly competent and highly-qualified finance and audit department at their disposal - to come in and find out what went wrong at Redland Green.

Meanwhile Comer and Bees have got far more important work to do than worrying over a wasted £5m. They’re now planning to privatise the jobs of drivers for special needs children!

Yes. Another privatisation to save a measly few grand a year at the expense of the low-paid while highly-paid officers get special protection from privatising councillors and more thousands thrown their way to pay consultants to produce a cover-up report for their multi-million pound errors.

What a complete and utter disgrace.

Further proof - as if it were needed - that public sector union, UNISON, is run by a bunch of loopy control freaks with no regard for anything other than feather-bedding themselves, supporting their New Labour government friends and shafting anybody wishing to engage in traditional trade union activities like improving the conditions of the working classes.

The Blogger learns the time-wasters of UNISON’s boss class have recently condemned as ‘racist’ a leaflet produced by sections of their own membership strongly criticising their leadership. A witchunt investigation against the perpetrators of the leaflet has now been launched by union’s bosses.

The leaflet exposes the lack of democracy at UNISON’s conference, where over one-third of the resolutions have been dismissed from the agenda on issues like election of officials, branch control over industrial action ballots and the union link with New Labour.

And the alleged racist content of this perfectly reasonable and democratic critique? A cartoon depicting the ‘Three Wise Monkeys’!

Why do UNISON members continue to their pay fees to support this shit?

Senior Labour cabinet member John Bees, stalwart of the local T&G, is rumoured to be spending a lot of time in “home care discussions” with the city council’s GMB rep Rowena Hayward.

This selfless partnership working on behalf of some of the lowest paid women in the city is impressive. But will this fantastic example of inter-union co-operation come good?

The forthcoming Employment Tribunal in Bristol where The Wobblies (IWW) will represent train driver Patrick Spackman (Blogger Passim), sacked from First Great Western for swearing, has now fallen victim to some good old-fashioned British leftist sectarianism.

Spackman has already upset elements in the RMT union bureaucracy and now, apparently, the Communist Party of Britain (CPB) who run the turgid Morning Star.

The CPB, a small cult of learning impaired Stalinists, exercises influence way beyond its membership - of probably around 500 - or the rationality of its ideas in both the union movement and the anti-war movement. This is largely due to CPB members Andrew Murray, who chairs the Stop the War Coalition and works for the T&G as a press officer, and Kate Hudson, the Iranian Mullah-loving chair of CND.

Unfortunately it seems Spackman may have done his swearing at an RMT activist. And by an extraordinary coincidence, since the Wobblies issued their press release to say they were representing Spackman, a typically Stalinist-style campaign to smear Spackman and prejudge his tribunal hearing has been waged across the internet. Dubious allegations regarding Spackman and his case have even appeared (and been removed) on The Bristol Blogger.

Even more extraordinarily these allegations have now surfaced in the pages of The Morning Star. The newspaper originally published the Wobblies’ press release about the case on 6 June, which pretty much resembled the material that appeared on The Bristol Blogger.

However this week the paper ran the following statement:

The article was based entirely on a press release and the Star, unfortunately, did not corroborate it’s contents before publishing it.
We have subsequently learned that the driver concerned was not dismissed simply for swearing but for violent harassment in the workplace against a respected senior lay union representative, who had also been a victim of a serious assault by the same person on a previous occasion.

We acknowledge that publication of the article has caused distress to the victim and apologise reservedly.

The serious allegations made in the statement - with the exception of the swearing - have been rejected in their entirety by the Wobblies, who are firmly stating Spackman was dismissed by First Great Western for gross misconduct as a result of swearing. At no time did the company activate its bullying and harrasment procedure and allegations of violence formed no part of Spackman’s disciplinary hearings with FGW.

This raises the questions of where did The Morning Star get these allegations from? Why are they publishing them prior to a tribunal hearing and what do they mean by the statement: “We… apologise reservedly”? Usually newspaper apologies are “unreservedly”. What is The Star holding back and why?

Meanwhile the Wobblies have told The Blogger, “We’re currently awaiting an apology and retraction from the Morning Star. If none is forthcoming the matter will be referred to the Press Complaints Commission.”

So unfortunately for Spackman and the Wobblies it’s not just First Great Western they’re now having to fight but the sad dregs of the communist left and their stupid smears.

If you’re sick of self-serving union bureaucrats and their Stalinist mates then click the link!