Short of time? The digested read: "Everything canceled; everybody sacked"

[most links removed]
P R O T E S T

BRISTOL PROTEST
The Bristol and District Anti-Cuts Alliance held a successful march and rally against the cuts last Saturday in Bristol. Estimates of attendance range from 700 - 4,000. This correspondent broadly accepts the BBC figure of 1,000. Organisers say the turnout represents "a good start" and have criticised the police for their actions at the event, which resulted in two arrests.

MEDIA LIES
Claims, presumably emanating from the Avon and Somerset Police's PR department, emerged in the Bristol Evening Post that one of those arrested possessed "a quantity of cannabis". This has been dismissed as "a complete fabrication on the part of the media."

BRISTOL INDYMEDIA
Bristol's local independent newswire has removed a satirical article poking fun at the police's actions on Saturday "following [a] legal challenge". The authorities seem shaken by the anti-cuts movement already ...

MARCH
Simon Smith, of the Public and Commercial Services (PCS) Union, said at Saturday's march and rally in Bristol that civil servants in Gloucestershire may take part in a nationwide day of action in response to the Government's spending cuts. "There were leaflets circulating about a day of general strike action across the country. There are certainly people talking about it, but it must be as a last resort," he said.

DAIRY
Farmers from the West joined a blockade of a large Tesco distribution centre near Southampton on Thursday 21 October 2010. The blockade was co-ordinated by Farmers For Action, set up 15 years ago to tackle excessive supermarket power. They now have mobilised again to attempt to force up "ruinously low milk prices".

More than 80 producers from across the region turned out and used tractors and other machinery to block the entrance to the depot for more than three hours. Farmers For Action say dairy farmers are reaching "desperation point" because of huge cost increases – as much at £50 per tonne – for winter feed.

Statistics reveal English dairy farmers' numbers shrank by 3.5 per cent so far this year and the figure was 5.5 per cent in Wales, where 115 producers have quit in the last year as a result of low prices.

Farmers For Action promise a "sustained pre-Christmas campaign involving all the major retailers".

QUIT!
Somerset dairy farmer Derek Mead, from the Yeo Valley organic group, is quitting the NFU in protest at its failure to support dairy farmers. Mr Mead, a lifelong union member and Somerset's delegate on the NFU's ruling council, says the NFU has turned a blind eye to the thousands of dairy farmers leaving the industry over low milk prices.

He helped set up Farmers For Action to combat low milk prices in the 1990s. "We have had a succession of the most appalling Defra (Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs) ministers and all we can do is invite them to the annual conference, listen politely to them and give them lunch," he says.

VODAPHONE
Anger over the Inland Revenue waiving Vodaphone's £6bn bill for tax evasion is rising. Protests were held at the tax dodger's Oxford Street store in London on Wednesday and the protestors are encouraging you to join - or organise! - protests against Vodaphone in your own area. #UKuncut
http://ukuncut.wordpress.com/

EDUCATION
Students and staff from Bath's two universities and further education college have joined forces to protest against cuts. Representatives from the students' unions at the University of Bath, Bath Spa University and the City of Bath College took to the streets last week to demonstrate about cuts in education. They were joined by members of Unite, Unison and the University and College Union (UCU).

BRISTOL AND DISTRICT ANTI-CUTS ALLIANCE
The alliance are meeting at 7.30pm on Monday at Barton Hill Primary School. All welcome. Please email if you intend going (please note new email).
admin@bristolanticutsalliance.org.uk

U N I O N S

UNITE
Polling for the election of a new General Secretary for Unite is now open. Jerry Hicks, the former Amicus convenor at Rolls-Royce, Filton, Bristol is running. Please vote for him. Not only is Jerry a local lad he's also the only rank and file Unite member running and he's agreed to do the job for an average working wage.

This is in stark contrast to the other candidates - Les 'n' Len (Bayliss and McCluskey) and Gail Cartmail - all well-paid bureaucrats with high-ranking positions within the union. Typically New Labour, they will take the six-figure salary - like the bosses! - no doubt because they think they're worth it.

Jerry says, "More of the same won’t do. We need a General Secretary that’s not part of the establishment. The other candidates, all appointed Assistant General Secretaries in a ‘job for life’ must share collective responsibility for the mismanagement of Unite. They’ve become ‘part of the problem’, not the solution."
http://www.unitetheunion.org/about_us/unite_2010_genera....aspx

UNISON
It is now clearly apparent that Unison has no national strategy to oppose the cuts. Instead, it seems, it will be down to individual branches to approach the cuts as they see fit. In Bristol, where the Unison strategy has been to trade away rights and conditions for nothing, this could be a big opportunity for the anti-cuts movement to seize the initiative. The other option is to continue to do nothing while thousands lose their jobs; have their pay cut and see their rights, pensions and conditions destroyed.

GENERAL STRIKE
It's time for one.

B R I S T O L

BRT - THE TRUTH
Transport Secretary Philip Hammond has cut Bristol City Council's proposed £48 million Ashton Vale - Temple Meads BRT ('Bendybus') scheme. A new, cheaper scheme needs to be drawn up and the council can then bid for the scheme from a national £600m pot at the end of 2011. Lib Dem Transport boss Gary Hopkins is "confident the Government would fund a new transport scheme in one form or another."

However, with 22 schemes bidding for the £600m - and Leeds alone requiring £200m - the scheme may be in a very different form indeed.

Whitehall sources say that as far as central government is concerned all of Bristol's proposed BRT routes (Ashton Vale to Temple Meads, Hengrove to North Fringe and the South Bristol Link) are "de facto" cancelled. The only way they will proceed is if the local authority comes back with a proposal that drastically reduces the level of funding required from central government - either by cutting services elsewhere or by attracting a high level of private sector investment.

A conversation this week between a Department of Transport civil servant and member of an NGO went something like this:

NGO: "So central government want the local authorities to be the ones to officially cancel these transport projects? For political reasons?"

Civil servant: "There is a need to share the blame around"

ABBEY WOOD
3,000 civil servants at Abbey Wood, Bristol could lose their jobs as a result of the Government cuts claim the Public and Commercial Services Union (PCS). "We have been told to expect one in three jobs to go so we are working on the basis that we are looking at 3,000 jobs losses," they say.

AVON FIRE AND RESCUE SERVICE
The Avon Fire and Rescue Service could merge with neighbouring brigades due to a budget cut of 12.5 per cent or about £5.75million. The authority claims there will be no cuts in the number of firefighters, no reduction in the number of stations and no redundancies. However there will be a ban on recruitment; an ongoing pay freeze and the service is considering merging 'backroom functions' with other fire brigades. The neighbouring Gloucestershire and Wiltshire Fire Services are described as being "in a financial mess with big problems".

A BASHING FROM THE BISHOP
The Bishop of Bristol, The Right Reverend Michael Hill, has described as "chilling" the ConDem government's wholesale smearing of welfare recipients as 'benefit cheats'.

JOB LOSSES
The Guardian has extrapolated from the Office for Budget Responsibility's national figures that 5,528 public sector jobs will be cut in Bristol, equivalent to a 30 per cent rise in unemployment. Their figure doesn't include the knock-on job losses in the private and voluntary sectors.

CSR RESPONSE
Bristol's Lib Dem response to the Comprehensive Spending Review has been released. "Our £22 million savings plan for the next financial year should be broadly correct," they claim. We shall see.

LABOUR
Bristol City Council's Labour Group have published no response to the spending review. We're still left to guess what they might think then.

SCHOOL DINNERS
The Bristol Evening Post has picked up on our story about Bristol's increase in school dinner prices from £2.10 to £2.20 for primary school children. They also point out that in South Gloucestershire, the prices will stay at £1.65 for primary and £1.75 for secondary; in North Somerset they stay at £1.95 and in Bath & North East Somerset £1.90. The Post also ran a critical editorial.

FERRY
A water commuter service, heavily subsidised by Bristol City Council and provided by the Bristol Ferry Company, will stop today. "It has not attracted enough customers to make it economical," the company say. The city council, keen as always to ignore economics, have transferred the subsidy to another ferry service.

LIBRARIES
Uproar in Bristol's North West working class district of Lawrence Weston last week as Bristol's LIb Dem leader Barbara Janke launched a publicly subsidised 'free' wi-fi service for the nearby - but distinctly upmarket - Henbury Library. Lawrence Weston library was shut down last year along with their City of Bristol College further ed campus with a vague promise that they might get a "mobile" library some time.

HOUSING
Despite 'the Great Recession', the National Housing Federation reports that the average price of a three-bedroom semi in Bristol has risen by eight per cent over the last 12 months to over £190,000. This means an average Bristol home is only available to people in households earning over £54,000 a year. Average income in the city is currently £20,576.

SOCIAL CARE
The Bristol Evening Post says Bristol City Council's plan to cut the number of their specialist dementia care homes from three to one and to scrap plans for any more joint council-NHS Residential Resources Centres for people needing care after leaving hospital - as CUTZ reported last week - will still leave the council with a £2m shortfall. The council is unable to say how they intend to fund this at present. The council's total capital budget shortfall across all departments for the year is now around £20m and growing.

ARTS
Sixteen arts groups in the Bristol, including the Bristol Old Vic, Arnolfini and Watershed have had their Arts Council grants cut by seven per cent for year 2011-2012. This is a temporary settlement and the organisations have been asked to re-apply next year for funding for 2012 to 2015 when deeper cuts to achieve 25 per cent need to be made.

PLANNING
Bristol City Council planner officers proposed waiving over £150,000 of S.106 charges for community improvements from Harbourside developers Crest Nicholson. The developers are about to embark on the next phase on their Canon's Marsh plans by building nearly 200 flats. The Bristol Civic Society say, "evidence suggests that the accommodation will be neither affordable nor of good quality". Councillors have rejected the proposals so far.

MAYOR
A website has been set up by Bristol's 'creative industries' leaders to lobby for an elected mayor.
http://bristolmayor.org/

LAND GIVEAWAYS
Bristol City Council's efforts to give their land away to tax-avoiding Bristol City FC Chairman, Steve Lansdown, at a knockdown price - in the middle of a £20m capital funding crisis - may be in breach of European subsidy rules.

ELDERLY
A hot meal club for the elderly in Bristol is under threat of closure due to a lack of funding.

B A T H

BRT
Bath's BRT project has also been delayed until the end of 2011 at least. Like Bristol they are required to cut costs and bid for money from the new small £600m pot of money available. Also, like Bristol, the scheme has no hope of going ahead.

FIRE SALE
Bath and North East Somerset Council is planning to sell valuable land assets such as car parks in the centre of Bath to raise money. They hope to raise £100m over the next five years.

S O U T H G L O U C E S T E R S H I R E

CARE HOMES
Council staff will not be transferred to jobs with the new provider if South Gloucestershire Council goes ahead with plans to privatise all of its residential homes for the elderly it's been revealed. Up to 150 jobs are threatened.

N O R T H S O M E R S E T

MUGGED
Weston-Super-Mare Town Council has taken over the running of the North Somerset Museum from North Somerset Council in exchange for £100,000. The museum requires immediate emergency works of around £40,000 and at least £250,000 of investment over the next five years.

G L O U C E S T E R S H I R E

FOREST OF DEAN
Government ministers may be planning to sell off large tracts of the Forest of Dean to private companies. Whitehall sources say Caroline Spelman, the environment secretary, is set to announce that the Forestry Commission will be forced to dispose of half its land in the wake of the comprehensive spending review.

Ms Spelman's Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) was decimated by last week's public spending cuts, with about 30 per cent of its annual £2.9 billion annual budget to disappear by 2015.

The move has been slammed by critics and worried residents, who say it will pave the way for Center Parcs-style holiday villages, golf courses and industrial logging operations.

S O M E R S E T

ARTS
Somerset County Council will cut their arts budget by 100% at a cabinet meeting on Monday. Objectors are asked to meet at 9.15am at Somerset College, Taunton on Monday to show their support for the arts.

P R I V A T I S A T I O N

MITIE
Ruby McGregor-Smith, Chief Exec of Bristol-based Mitie - the public sector outsource specialists - was one of the 35 'business leaders' who sent a letter to the Daily Telegraph supporting Osborne's cuts. Mitie, a FTSE 250 company, currently turn over £1.7bn largely through local and central government contracts. The company, thanks to the cuts and the outsourcing opportunities they will provide, is now confident of becoming a FTSE 100 company. Ms McGregor-Smith earns around £1.1m a year through the taxpayer and drives from her home in Ascot to Bristol most days in a BMW M3 Convertible.
Mitie, 8 Monarch Court, The Brooms, Emersons Green, Bristol, BS16 7FH

MET OFFICE
1,000 staff at the Exeter-based Met Office are waiting to hear if they are to be privatised. The organisation, which is currently part of the Ministry of Defence and makes a considerable income by selling weather data, was not mentioned in the Strategic Defence Review or the Comprehensive Spending Review. However, it's known to be on a list drawn up by a new Cabinet committee - Pex-A (public expenditure - asset sales) - for privatisation. "They are going to sell everything not nailed down," says an advisor to the committee.

C S R

PUBLIC-PRIVATE PARTNERSHIP?
The private sector is now taking direct hits as a result of the public sector cuts. John Dennis Coachbuilders (JDC), the UK's biggest fire engine manufacturer, is making about 45 shop floor workers and office staff - around one third of their workforce - redundant at the end of November as it scales back production. "It is not that we are losing lots of orders to our competitors, it is that new fire engines are not being ordered," says Alan McClafferty, managing director of JDC.

THE KEYNES VIEW
Will Hutton, one of the country's leading Keynesian economists says, "Unemployment and miserable poverty are about to hit Britain hard. Unstable times lie ahead." John Maynard Keynes was, of course, a lifelong member of the Liberal Party.

Fellow Observer columnist William Keegan says "George Osborne could be the most dangerous chancellor of my lifetime". Keegan compares Osborne to Labour Chancellor Philip Snowden who plunged the country into economic depression in 1930-31 by trying to balance the budget.

FARMING
Bankers - of all people - say the cuts in Defra's (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs) budget herald a new era for UK agriculture in which farmers will need to become "less dependent on support" and focus instead on new business opportunities.

The government department must cut a third of its budget over the next four years. Gareth Oakley, head of agriculture at Lloyds TSB, says the reductions should prompt a more self-reliant mindset across the industry. He said: "Whether through co-operation, diversification, adding value or increased efficiency, farmers must use these cuts as a catalyst for change that will secure their futures."

Lloyds TSB with their "self-reliant mindset" was "dependent on support" to the tune of £37bn in one day on 13 October 2008. That's quite a "catalyst for change" to secure their future.

PRIVATISATION
'Procurement Connection 2010', a conference run by "tendering advisers" Ways2Win, told 170 south west firms in Exeter last week how they will be able to bid for public sector contracts in the wake of the comprehensive spending review. The Met Office, Devon & Cornwall Police, Devon & Somerset Fire & Rescue Service, the Royal Devon & Exeter NHS Foundation Trust, Exeter City Council, Exeter College, Torbay Council and the Ministry of Defence all attended the event.

COMMERCIAL PROPERTY
Bristol's commercial property market may be thrown in to turmoil by government cuts. The South West Regional Development Agency, which has offices in Bristol, is facing the axe along with the Government Office of the South West and the Infrastructure Planning Committee. The Environment Agency which employs a thousand people also faces large cuts. Experts are therefore predicting a glut of commercial property available in the city.

B U S I N E S S

MTC
An Exeter-based construction firm has gone into administration with the loss of 70 jobs. Michael Thorne Construction (MTC), has appointed Grant Thornton administrators. Managing director, Peter Askew, is blaming banks for refusing to extend further credit to the firm.

STOKES
Nine more branches of the Bristol-based independent greengrocers in administration, Stokes plc, have closed. The Bristol, Exeter, Falmouth, Honiton, Sherborne, Tavistock, Torquay, Totnes and Wadebridge stores have now shut resulting in a further 72 redundancies adding to the 80 reported last week. Administrators KPMG have now closed 20 of its 27 stores. UPDATE: 5 more stores closed Friday.

THE REAL THING?
Another example of how the ConDem's private sector recovery will be conducted? Staff at Coca Cola offices in Bristol are expected to join a European-wide demonstration against the company's job cuts. 120 jobs are at risk in the UK and more than 400 in Europe. The Unite union say the company is forcing through a restructuring programme that will replace high-paid workers with lower paid ones. The company is refusing to negotiate at present. Unite say the company is "recession resistant" and is using the economic climate to force through "attacks on jobs and pay". The company are still making phenomenal profits; paying large dividends to shareholders and increasing executive pay.

HELPHIRE
Bath's accident claim firm Helphire has issued a profit warning as both revenues and full-year profits are set to be down. The firm almost went bust in 2008 and 1,200 staff lost their jobs.

CONWAY STEWART
Plymouth-based luxury pen manufacturers Conway Stewart and Company Ltd have gone into administration.

E C O N O M Y

POVERTY KILLS
386 vulnerable people - mostly over 75 years of age - died in Somerset last winter from causes directly attributable to the cold and poor living conditions. More are likely to do so this year.

TRANSPORT
Train fares are set to rise by as much as 10.8 per cent in January rather than the 5.8 per cent we were led to believe last week. The ConDems have restored the five per cent "flexibility" to all train fare rises, scrapped last year. Further rises are penciled in for 2012 too.

POLICE
Chairman of Avon and Somerset Police Authority, Dr Peter Heffer admits "we will not be able to meet everyone’s expectations" after 20% was slashed from their budget last week.

Wiltshire Police is axing 20 per cent of its staff, including officers, over the next five years. Chief Constable Brian Moore says he will be losing up to 150 uniformed officers and between 150 and 200 civilian support staff.

JUDGES
District Judge, David Parsons, described benefit cheats as "parasites' this week at Bristol Magistrates Court. Highly privileged members of the minor judiciary, paid huge six-figure salaries by the state to rant aimlessly - in a public school accent - at the poor in Magistrates Courts, are, of course, in no way parasitical.

THE BRISTOL PARASITE LIST
Anyone interested in helping CUTZ compile a list of all the people in the city earning a six-figure salary courtesy of the state please get in touch. It will be published as the 'The Bristol Parasite List'

THIEVES
Boardroom pay for FTSE 100 directors has risen by 55% over the last year.

HOUSING
The Association of Residential Lettings Agents says the number of tenants seeking rental properties is at an eight year high. They report "a significant shortage" as demand exceeds supply and are calling for the government to introduce urgent regulatory protection.

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