Politics

  • TidyBS5 round-up

    Steve WoodsBristol, Politics

    It’s been a while since there’s been a Tidy BS5 post on this blog, but that doesn’t mean the campaign has been dormant.

    So let’s deal with recent developments in chronological order.

    On Thursday 22nd January Bristol Mayor George Ferguson was on a walkabout of the Ashley, Easton & Lawrence Hill Neighbourhood Partnership area.

    Bristol Mayor George Ferguson mobbed by Tidy BS5 campaigners
    Picture courtesy of Stacy Yelland

    TidyBS5 campaigners met the Mayor at the junction of Stapleton Road and Milsom Street – a notorious fly-tipping hotspot – to express their concerns about litter and fly-tipping locally, as reported by Bristol 24/7 (bit different from North Street, isn’t it, George? Ed.).

    The Bristol Post also reported on George’s visit to Stapleton Road, managing in its own inimitable, cock-eyed way to describe TidyBS as a “street-cleaning community group“.

    Although your ‘umble scribe was unable to attend due to other commitments, feedback has been positive. Witnesses report that George seemed genuinely shocked by the stinky bin by which he was confronted/ambushed. In addition, he gave a commitment to bring one of the Make Sunday Special events to Stapleton Road.

    Local resident Hannah has posted some more videos of George’s visit on YouTube.

    On Tuesday this week, local councillors Marg Hickman and Afzal Shah, together with local residents and Lorena from Up Our Street took Bristol’s Assistant Mayor for Neighbourhoods Daniella Radice on a walk around the Stapleton Road area to acquaint her with our local litter and fly-tipping difficulties.

    One thing that shocked Daniella was the way the council’s contractors May Gurney dump the plastic liner bags from litter bins on the pavement for later collection (sometimes the next day. Ed.), which also contributes to making the BS5 area look grotty; this was a practice Daniella undertook to investigate and/or change. We also drew her attention to concerns in reporting street cleansing problems via Twitter, the council’s online reporting system and by telephone (0117 922 2100 if you’d care to give it a go. Ed.).

    Daniella was also alerted to the totally inadequate – if any – recycling facilities provided for residents of the city’s tower blocks. For instance, Twinnell House in Easton houses hundreds of people. Their recycling “facilities” are illustrated below.

    6 wheelie bins for recycling for hundreds of residents of Twinnell House

    That’s right, a mere 6 wheelie bins!

    Marg Hickman also pointed out that millions of pounds are and have been spent in refurbishing the city’s council-owned high-rise blocks. However, the refurbishment plans include no provision for recycling facilities. This is incredible for a city that allegedly prides itself on its green credentials and is the current European Green Capital!

    Another item raised with Daniella was the lack of recycling collections for residents living on the lower part of Stapleton Road above the shops. They’re being charged for recycling collections in their council tax, but these collections are not provided. If I lived on Stapleton Road, I’d report Bristol City Council to the police for fraud and/or obtaining pecuniary advantage! 🙂

    On Wednesday evening this week Up Our Street hosted a TidyBS5 task force meeting, which attracted about a dozen local residents from across the BS5 area, as well as councillor Marg Hickman and representatives from the local ACORN branch. Various priorities from the Residents’ Rubbish Summit (posts passim), planned forthcoming activities (e.g. consultations, litter picks, etc.) and discovered what skills attendees could provide to benefit TidyBS5.

    Afterwards, we had the compulsory campaign photo taken.

    summiteers demand a tidy BS5
    Picture courtesy of Lorena Alvarez

  • Capita has had 3 years to hit target and has failed… miserably

    Steve WoodsLanguage, Politics

    Yesterday, the Law Gazette website reported that 3 years into its courts and tribunals interpreting contract with the Ministry of Justice (MoJ), Capita Translation & Interpreting has yet to meet its key performance target – that of the percentage of requests filled for the provision of court interpreters.

    image of scales of justiceAccording to the latest figures released by the MoJ, Capita Translation & Interpreting completed 94.8% of requests for language services in the 3rd quarter (July to September) of 2014, i.e. well short of the 98% target specified in its contract.

    The Ministry of Justice said this was the hapless outsourcer’s highest success rate since the contract started in 2012.

    Capita Translation & Interpreting is supposed to hit that 98% target every month and has yet to meet it at all in one single month over the last 3 years.

    There’s a phrase for this: abject failure.

    However, the MoJ seems to have a particular blind spot for its pet contractor’s pathetic performance. Courts minister Shailesh Vara said the interpreting contract had continued to deliver significant improvements since being introduced to tackle inefficiencies and inconsistencies (my weasel words detector is working overtime. Ed.).

    Others involved in the administration of justice differ radically from the MoJ stance.

    The Law Society said it was “shocking” that after nearly 3 years of the MoJ having a sole provider, the service was still failing to reach its performance target.

    “A lack of available interpreters costs time and causes unnecessary adjournments, resulting in avoidable distress to victims and inconvenience to witnesses,” the Society said.

    Furthermore, Shadow justice minister Andy Slaughter said it was shocking the government was unable to get a grip after three years into the contract.

    I cannot disagree with either the Law Society or Mr. Slaughter. Had my failure to meet targets been of the order of that of Capita Translation & Interpreting, I would not have survived the last quarter of a century as a freelance linguist and been consigned to the dole queue long since.

    You should seriously think of showing Capita T&I the door, MoJ. If they haven’t been up to the job for the last 3 years, what makes you think they’ll ever change?

  • Vous n’êtes pas Charlie

    Steve WoodsMedia, Politics

    Today an anti-terror rally is being held in Paris in memory of those killed at the offices of Charlie Hebdo (posts passim) and at a Kosher supermarket in recent days.

    It is said that up to 1.5 mn. people are attending the rally.

    Amongst the attendees are many politicians, led by President Hollande. Many foreign politicians are also attending.

    Charlie Hebdo was a beacon of free speech and freedom of the press. Several of the foreign politicians in attendance represent regimes whose treatment of the press is less than enlightened. They include:

    Hat tip: Daniel Wickham.

  • Bristol – European fly-tipping capital?

    Steve WoodsBristol, Oddities, Politics

    In the world of the city’s great and good, Bristol is off to a flying start celebrating its year as European Green Capital.

    Plans are already well advanced to spend thousands on spurious ‘green‘ arts projects, such as dumping a load of old boats in picturesque Leigh Woods.

    According to the blurb on the European Green Capital website, the “European Green Capital Award (EGCA) has been conceived to recognise and reward local efforts to improve the environment, the economy and the quality of life in cities.”

    However, it would appear that there’s been little local effort – apart from protests by local residents and councillors – to improve the environment and quality of life in inner city areas such as Easton, Lawrence Hill and St Pauls, judging by the amount of fly-tipping that still goes on daily on our streets with no sign of a slackening or any meaningful enforcement efforts or action by Bristol’s seemingly impotent or uninterested city council.

    The photographs below were taken this morning by local resident Hannah Crudgington and are typical of the grottiness we inner city residents have to endure every day. All the photographs were taken within a couple of hundred metres of each other in the BS5 postcode area.

    fly-tipping at Twinnell House

    fly-tipping on Stapleton Road

    fly-tipped mattress on Goodhind Street

    Was Bristol awarded the European Green Capital award on false premises? Some in the city believe that to be the case. Judging the evidence of my own eyes, awarding Bristol with the European Green Capital award would have been more appropriate.

    Do you agree? Please feel free to comment.

  • Latvian man spends 4 weeks in jail due to interpreter problem

    Steve WoodsLanguage, Politics

    image of scales of justiceA Latvian man spent 4 weeks in jail for an offence that would normally have attracted a non-custodial sentence, the Shropshire Star reports.

    Rolands Etjantens pleaded guilty on 8th December to a charge of common assault, but was remanded in custody by Telford magistrates to await assessment by the probation service to see if he was suitable for community punishment.

    According to his solicitor, Etjantens’ lack of English also meant he was not suitable for unpaid work in the community or supervision by the probation service as both of these would also require the use of interpreters.

    District Judge Andrew King ultimately sentenced Etjantens, of no fixed abode, to 42 days in prison, meaning that he would be released within a few days.

  • Je suis Charlie

    Steve WoodsMedia, Politics, Social Media

    Social media has responded quickly to the horrific attack on the offices of French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo in Paris today, which resulted in 12 deaths and 5 injured. Four of those killed were Charlie Hebdo cartoonists Charb, Cabu, Tignous and Georges Wolinski.

    The press office of Amnesty International in France has described that attack as “A black day for press freedom”.

    Many Twitter accounts changed their avatar to the Je suis Charlie image shown below, whilst many tweets were also tagged with the #JesuisCharlie hashtag.

    Je suis Charlie

    Some of the harshest condemnations of the attack have come from the attackers’ co-religionists. The imam of Drancy, Hassen Chalghoumi, is reported to have said: “Their barbarism has nothing to do with Islam”.

    My deepest condolences to the victims and their families.

  • Friend deputises when Capita interpreter fails to show

    Steve WoodsLanguage, Media, Politics

    image of scales of justiceOn 29th December the Grantham Journal reported on the case of a Romanian man appearing before Grantham Magistrates Court charged with the theft of £2,000 worth of chewing gum and other items from two Lincolnshire supermarkets.

    31 year-old Ionut Dumitru Nae of Coventry, had pleaded guilty on 24th November to attempting to take £900 worth of gum and other items from Morrisons in Stamford and then stealing more packs of chewing gum, champagne and other products to the value of pound;1,500 from Asda in Grantham.

    However, the defendant had to rely on the assistance of his English-speaking friend to translate in court when no interpreter turned up.

    Hat tip: Linguist Lounge.

  • Want to bash immigrants? Use interpreters! The Express does!

    Steve WoodsLanguage, Media, Politics

    The Daily Express, once described by Prince Philip as a “bloody awful newspaper“, is not well known for its love of foreigners.

    One has to wonder whether there are any limits the depths to which it will sink in its xenophobia.

    The latter was apparent in an article earlier this week on police use of interpreters in West Yorkshire (which are provided by our old friends and paragons of competence Capita Translation & Interpreting, according to the Bradford Telegraph & Argus. Ed.).

    Apparently the police had to resort to using interpreters 6,000 times for 75 different languages.

    The Express’ derisive attitude to foreigners is obvious in the report’s second sentence, as is its scant regard to skilled professionals such as interpreters being paid properly.

    The cost, believed to be rising because of a soaring number of immigrants, was not revealed but interpreters can command fees of up to £40 an hour.

    To support its xenophobia, the Express finds a willing accomplice in Bradford Tory councillor Michael Walls, who even goes so far as to suggest that officers with a second language assisting in interviews would be a cheaper option for the police than engaging a skilled professional interpreter. He is quoted by the Express as saying: “Police officers who have a second language would be more economical.”

    Clearly neither the Express nor Councillor Walls have heard of a minor impediment to such a scheme, one that’s called conflict of interest.

    Your correspondent wonders what the considered response of the Law Society would be to such a suggestion.

    The article is open to comments and Express readers are not backward in showing their xenophobia (and accompanying support for UKIP. Ed.) either. Indeed the first comment is quite definite, starting: “They should have to Speak English before we let them in!”

    How would that person feel if the tables were turned and he or she couldn’t go on holiday abroad because he couldn’t speak fluent, French, Spanish or Thai beforehand?

  • EU invests in free software

    Steve WoodsOpen Source, Open Standards, Politics, Tech

    EU flagGerman IT news site heise reports that the AT4AM free software package is to promote collaboration by NGOs in legislative processes within the EU. In addition, open source use within the EU is to be investigated in more detail.

    In the coming year the European Union wants to invest at least €1 mn. in free software. The 2015 EU budget, which was passed by the European Parliament on 17th December, makes provision for this. Two major projects are planned: firstly the open source AT4AM package, which is used by MEPs for drafing legislation, is to be extended to provide a tool for civil society to collaborate on lawmaking.

    In the “Governance and quality of software code – Auditing of free and open-source software” pilot project exposure to and the development of open source in the EU is to be aligned with the practices of free software projects such as the Debian community. In addition, an inventory will be made of the free software and open standards used in the EU and a code review of an open source software package used in the EU will be carried out as a showcase.

    This news has been welcomed by the Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE). Its President, Karsten Gerloff, commented as follows:

    This is a very welcome decision. Like most public bodies, the European institutions rely heavily on Free Software for their daily operations. It is good to see that the Parliament and the Commission will invest at least a little in improving the quality and the programs they use. Taken together, these projects are a first step towards more transparent policy making in Europe. We will continue to work with the Commission and the Parliament to help them along the path of engaging more consistently and effectively with the Free Software community.

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