@yanksinbristol.bsky.social @yooge.bsky.social @bristolcitizen.bsky.social @uobrishistory.bsky.social @stillawake17.bsky.social @adamchapman.bsky.social (& others)

TC: This seems absent from todays' national media - ASP news management yet again? 'It was only an airgun' is unacceptable. @bristolcitizen.bsky.social @thebristolcable.bsky.social @bristol247.bsky.social @bristolcopwatch.bsky.social @beardedjourno.bsky.social @stillawake17.bsky.social (etc)

I’m starting a PhD at the University of Bristol this month. I'll be working on predicting higher education access rates for young people engaged with care, by local authority. It’s easier to look at the numbers and statistical models than read of the heartache of generations being abandoned.

Three boys – Max, Mason and Darrian – lost their lives in just three weeks. A review into youth violence was commissioned and it exposes how Bristol’s most vulnerable children are failed: SEND delays, parents spied on, South Bristol left behind, and Black boys excluded.

The Green administration are complicit in not investigating Marvin Rees’ payments from companies he gave contracts to. They helped delete and hide his emails. Thanks, Private Eye.

It's embarrassing that, as a Brit, I'm better represented on the world stage by the Spanish PM than I am that contemptible sack of pink goo that was poured into Downing St. #r4today #Israel #Gaza edition.cnn.com/2025/09/08/m...

Ofsted will push ahead with plans for a new "report card" system of inspecting schools in England, despite strong criticism from a coalition of school leaders, campaigners and former inspectors. One card will rate how inclusive a school is www.bbc.com/news/articles/cx...

Now we know the timeline.... Was Darren Jones’ new role (which otherwise looks like a risky demotion from being Chief Secretary in the Treasury) actually created by Starmer as a kind of waiting room - so that Jones can smoothly become Deputy PM for all domestic policies when Rayner has to go?

Labour and Greens in Bristol are both complicit in keeping Marvin’s payments secret. Why is he still being paid by Ameresco? What are they paying him for and was it before or after the company was handed a £1 billion contract with the council?

Labour and Greens in Bristol are both complicit in keeping Marvin’s payments secret. Why is he still being paid by Ameresco? What are they paying him for and was it before or after the company was handed a £1 billion contract with the council?

Homelessness crisis in the UK. Outcome of real wage/benefit cuts, never-ending austerity, sale of council homes, emasculation of local councils, lack of affordable/social housing, corporate profiteering, no rent controls, appeasing corporations/rich. archive.ph/TV6JG

US sliding towards 1930s-style autocracy, warns Ray Dalio. Neoliberalism blames minorities for problems, not corporate capitalism, inequalities, concentration of wealth or political corruption In Farage, the UK has a Trump clone who will deprive people of human and workers rights. archive.ph/xUeJ8

No. Spying as in literally having staff physically following me around Bristol covertly to see what I say about the council. Then discussing it. And removing EHCP provision as a result. It’s the bit the press never mentions

THE CIRCULAR ECONOMY: thebristolian.net/2025/08/03/t... <<A handful of Oxbridge ponces from management consultants Newton Europe have arrived at the Counts Louse to cut £65m from Children’s Services in exchange for £7.5m.

fyi @stillawake17.bsky.social

The Green administration should have set up enquiries on Bristol Energy, SEND spying, the arena, Stepping Up & the Barton House evacuation as a minimum. Instead, they chose not to confront the potential misuse of power at all. See video for refusal to pursue SEND spying. youtu.be/R921fmE_iSQ?...

The Tony Blair Institute participated in a project to develop a postwar Gaza plan that envisaged kick-starting the enclave’s economy with a “Trump Riviera” and an “Elon Musk Smart Manufacturing Zone”. www.ft.com/content/0b1b...

🔑We wrote this no-nonsense guide for campaigners, community groups, journalists, and anyone curious to find out more about the local state right now researchforaction.uk/guide-local-... #LocalGov #LocalDemocracy #CouncilsInCrisis #Accountability #Governance #Devolution #Councils

This is just getting silly. People are sending me copies of @quantick.bsky.social’s very excellent book on The White Album to give away. I have two earmarked for distribution but if anyone wants the third DM me.

'Freedom of Information'? Me for Politics Home on FOI at 20 www.politicshome.com/thehouse/art...

@benworthy.bsky.social @davidhencke.bsky.social @acarpen.bsky.social @fewslane.bsky.social @josiah.writes.news @rosiepearson59.bsky.social @stillawake17.bsky.social

Farcical levels of governance from Bristol City Council. They can't organise a filing system: www.bristolpost.co.uk/news/bristol...

1/2 ...alterations made in the New Inn. In Bristol, buildings by Edward Godwin have _recently_ been either radically facaded or outright demolished. And so on. Meanwhile, in 2024: 'Surely *They* wouldn't put the HST route through an Ancient Monument would they?' www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

1/1 Follow thanks. You may like to continue interest in the Wedgewood-Benns by hosting a podcast discussing the fact that the Stansgate peerage was not abolished in 1963 but suspended. After his father's death in 2014 Stephen Wedgewood-Benn claimed the peerage as 3rd Viscount Stansgate...

1/2 ...At present, strict sexual discrimination in peerage rules mean that Viscount Stansgate will be succeeded by a male heir. If the laws are replaced, his eldest child & only daughter Emily Wedgewood-Benn will succeed her father as the fourth heir & first Viscountess Stansgate...

1/3 ...Viscountess Stansgate will then be able to access all the benefits of being a peer from an über-entitled political family even if the hereditary peers are finally removed from The House Of Lords. Isn't democracy wonderful? @bristolcitizen.bsky.social @stillawake17.bsky.social

I was at this session and can agree with everything written here. Please do read.

SO CLOSE‼️ Just over 7k 🔼 to the MAGIC 100K! petition.parliament.uk/petit... Defend Disabled children's #SEND rights! 📤 with family, school, FB/WhatsApp groups, non-SEND pals—SEND can affect any child at any time: "It could be you" (but you'll have a lot less money than a lottery win) SIGN & SHARE!

Any Medievalists want a copy of the newest edition of Debating #Medieval Europe - The central and later Middle Ages - for... free? Our DME books serve as an entry point for understanding the distinctive historiography of their periods. Hit repost and we'll add you to the giveaway 📗👇 #booksky

@robbryher.bsky.social @stillawake17.bsky.social‬ @saveredlandlibr.bsky.social‬ St. George Library closed today due to staff shortage. No notice on door. No text to prewarn. This may be a significant problem for ppl who don’t have a computer &/or internet access. And why no staff backup?

Bristol City Council are removing the ability to scrutinuse decisions made by elected reps & council staff. All council business should be documented & available (with reasonable redactions). @stillawake17.bsky.social has covered this brilliantly in the other place.

FOIs have revealed how politicians and officers work with business to ensure their needs are met while the public suffer the consequences. In Bristol, the Greens have now ensured all that can be buried. youtu.be/vKsNzDd6iKM

Important reporting by @stillawake17.bsky.social raising questions about Bristol Council’s Families First transformation programme open.substack.com/pub/joannab/...

14 questions Keir Starmer needs to answer about growth youtu.be/tXt8jTw64cw?... The only goal that we really know that our Labour government has is growth, but no-one really knows why that is, and they have never explained. So, I’ve set out 14 questions they need to answer.

I've been saying this for years. Parties should be banned from raising and spending money as much as practicable. leftfootforward.org/2025/01/how-...

🔺 EXCLUSIVE: Nearly £1 in every £4 raised in council tax is now being spent on staff pensions, as local authorities pay nearly £7 billion into pots over past year

This is shocking. Even after 14 months of Israeli atrocities, of extermination,of ethnic cleansing and now genocide, this is shocking. www.wsws.org/en/articles/...

thebrusselsreview.com/alia-papageo... a little story I wrote about my neighbour Irene. Now in a home at more than 90 years old always expressing her love for opera, and telling me stories of Belgium ✍🏾

Just so we’re all clear, it is a fully established fact that the IDF is directly, deliberately killing civilians in Gaza. There was a time in the early days of the genocide when this could be disputed, but that is no longer true. www.caitlinjohnst.one/p/israel-is-...

Another email from the @bristolgreenparty.bsky.social party claiming that ‘winning’ is a success and all they have to boast about is winning. Have you done anything useful for the people you represent? Where are the investigations into spying and Labour giving away our assets?

If in 5 years there'sstill no new mass party of the working class emerging to replace Labour, & you want to do a left protest vote then yes, vote Green if there's no independent socialist candidate at the next UK general election But before you vote for them at council elections, look at Bristol

Other members of the Greens I have spoken too have tried to present it as this black and white: we either implement austerity or the central government takes over. But there is a lot of policy space between running an actual illegal budget and doing what thr Green-run Bristol Council is now doing

Some shocking nonsense from France here. No one gets immunity from an ICC arrest warrant because they're in office - not Netanyahu, not Putin, no one. See Article 27 of the Rome Statute: www.icc-cpi.int/sites/defaul...

Open corruption on view at Bristol City Council and still the boss class push back pretending the problem is 'perception' rather than the award of a contract to a senior councillor's firm that didn't even have a bank account: www.bristol247.com/news-and-fea...

If you're a journalist and want to talk to us abou what this crisis in local accountability mechanisms means for #LocalGov and the people who depend on it, get in touch!

& in this open letter Nov 2023, outlined that audit problems are damaging to democracy and called for Govt to ensure robust scrutiny, regs & oversight & greater transparency - audit needs a deep transformation. researchforaction.uk/open-letter-...

This is huge and really troubling - the NAO for first time cannot sign off Whole of Govt Accounts because of the crisis in local govt auditing and huge backlog in audits. (1/4) www.theguardian.com/society/2024...