First hour News Review: Tim Kent, Lib Dem Councillor for Hengrove and Whitchurch Park. Bristol Council and Covid 19 -online meetings and elections delayed. Problems with Mayoral system. Cars out of Bristol City Centre â public transport in city. Tim Bowles, Tory Metro Mayor â what does he do?
Bristol Energy scrapped â after costing Council £50m. Loss-making Bristol Energys boss earned £322k last year - The ex-boss of a council-owned energy firm that made a £32m loss was paid £322,960, city council accounts show. Managing director, Marek Majewicz, was paid a £228,081 salary last year and a £94,879 payout when he left. Bristol Mayor Marvin Rees earns £79,468 a year. Liberal Democrat Tim Kent said: "He was being paid over £200,000 a year to lose council taxpayers money at a rate of over £1m a month." Mr Majewicz has not commented. Bristol City Council has declined to comment. Speaking on BBC Radio Bristol, Mr Kent added: "I will say one thing, he was consistent. Every month that that company has operated theyve lost £1m of Bristol taxpayers money." In the previous eight months, between August 2018 when Mr Majewicz first became a director of the company and March 2019, he took home a salary of £187,500, the Local Democracy Reporting Service said.
Special educational needs funding â parents have to battle with the Council and take them to court. Parents fury as 190 children cant return to special school in Bristol next week. The council have announced a £28.7m plan but it will take a year or more. - A total of 190 children with special needs across Bristol will not be returning to a specialist school next month - because the council has failed to provide enough SEND places for them. There are 13 children who have no place at all, while the other 177 will study in mainstream schools with specialist education, health and care plans (ECHP) drawn up to help them there. The children, who number the equivalent of a secondary schools entire year intake, have special educational needs, but the shortfall in places means they will either be staying in mainstream schools, at home or remain in pre-schools. Furious parents have slammed the council, and described a council pledge that children with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) would be a priority as a load of rubbish. Bristol City Council has announced a £28.7 million plan to create more places for SEND children, which will include major redevelopments at two schools, as well as create additional special school places at a number of mainstream schools across the city....Â
Copyright Simon Chapman 2017
How good is local media? Interview with Steve Brodie, former BBC West Home Affairs correspondent, on cuts to BBC in the West and the work of the BS8 Whiteladies Road NUJ chapel. 46 Senior BBC Nations and Regions managers, none of whom contribute to the corporations output, earn over £100k and its estimated their combined salaries would pay for around 400 full-time journalists and production staff. - What the BBC cuts to Points West and Radio Bristol will mean. Things will look and sound different. Points West presenter Alex Lovell said job cuts at the BBC in Bristol which will see only one presenter front the show for the first time ever were a âhard pill to swallowâ. She or co-host David Garmston face redundancy or a job share as part of a raft of cuts at the corporationâs Whiteladies Road headquarters. As well as cutting the number of presenters for the BBCâs flagship evening news programme from two to one, there will also be one fewer presenting slots on the daytime BBC Radio Bristol too...
Words from âLand of Hope and Gloryâ which BBC decide are not to be sung at 2020 Proms. Here are the full lyrics for Rule Britannia
When Britain first, at heavens command, Arose from out the azure main, This was the charter of the land, And Guardian Angels sang this strain:
Rule, Britannia! Britannia, rule the waves! Britons never, never, never shall be slaves.
The nations not so blest as thee Must, in their turn, to tyrants fall, While thou shalt flourish great and free: The dread and envy of them all.
Still more majestic shalt thou rise, More dreadful from each foreign stroke, As the loud blast that tears the skies Serves but to root thy native oak.
Thee haughty tyrants neer shall tame; All their attempts to bend thee down Will but arouse thy generous flame, But work their woe and thy renown.
Thy cities shall with commerce shine; All thine shall be the subject main, And every shore it circles, thine.
The Muses, still with freedom found, Shall to thy happy coasts repair. Blest isle! with matchless beauty crowned, And manly hearts to guard the fair.
Rule, Britannia! Britannia, rule the waves! Britons never, never, never shall be slaves
BBC fury: EU anthem played at Proms first night in âBrexit protest Former BBC DG Michael Grade on implausible Covid excuse for pulling Rule Britannia and Land of Hope and Glory from Proms. Â
US B52 Bombers arrive at USAF Fairford â getting ready to âdefendâ Belarus? US B-52 Bombers back in Britain: escalating nuclear tension. Six US Air Force B-52 bombers arrived at RAF Fairford on Saturday. Official sources describe it as âa long planned training missionâ, carrying out theatre and flight training across Europe and Africa. But local news site GloucestershireLive describes it as a âsurprise deploymentâ. Yesterday the much respected expert Hans Kristensen from the Federation of American Scientists posted a picture of all six bombers on twitter, describing it as âa pointed message to Russiaâ. He went on to note the âinteresting timing of deploymentâ, given whatâs happening in Belarus, observing that these exercises normally take place over Poland and the Baltic states â Belarusâs neighbours. Such a mobilisation raises serious concerns, not least because some B-52s are nuclear capable. To bring these into an already tense mix seems ill-advised to say the least but this appears to be what is happening: Kristensen points out that two of the B-52s in the image are nuclear-capable. General Jeff Harrigian, U.S. Air Forces in Europe and Air Forces Africa commander, describes the deployment thus: âB-52s are back at RAF Fairford, and will be operating across the theater in what will be a very active deployment. Our ability to quickly respond and assure allies and partners rests upon the fact that we are able to deploy our B-52s at a momentâs notice.â
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