Lord Mayor's limo

I see that Bristol's Lord Mayor may have to have his limo written off after an accident (see here). Er...why should Bristol's Lord Mayor be provided with a car in the first place? Or a chauffeur to drive it? And what about the expense of the Mansion House (pictured)? And any other expenses and trappings of Bristol's Lord Mayor...Why not sell the car and house, get rid of the Lord Mayor and use the money directly to help keep public services alive? No doubt some would point to the Lord Mayor's charity work or promotion of the city but there are too many unmeasurables to know whether having a Lord Mayor really pays its way - and we can easily see what the expenses are (see picture). Maybe having some other person from the council doing the basics of what the Lord Mayor now does without the frills would be better. These are hard times that will get harder in the coming years - and we are all supposed to be in it together!!

Lord Mayor of Bristol and MPs form giant human clock for Bristol ‘Global Climate Wake Up Call’

MPs and Councillors certainly need to wake up and act on climate issues - along with the rest of us!! This from Oxfam South West:

At 12:18 pm on 21st September, Oxfam South West is hosting the Bristol ‘Global Climate Wake Up Call’ at Arnolfini as part of a global wave, starting from New York, to wake the world up to the urgency of action on climate change.

A giant human clock, formed by the Lord Mayor of Bristol Christopher Davies, local MPs, councillors, Unaiti Jaime of Oxfam Mozambique, and climate change campaigners will ring out at 12:18 to mark the Bristol ‘Wake Up Call’. The call is drawing the worlds’ attention to the 12th month and the 18th day when the vital Copenhagen Climate Change Summit, which opens on 7th December, is scheduled to finish.

“This event is part of a worldwide wake up call which is thrilling in its variety,” says Roger James of Oxfam South West. “A gathering in Ethiopia will beat drums to sound the alarm, monks will chant prayers. People everywhere, from Bristol to Buenos Aires, will sound alarms on their mobile phones, flood their governments with phone calls and make a tremendous noise at 12:18 pm local time to push for action on climate change.”

The images, sounds, and videos from around the globe will be stitched together overnight for presentation to world leaders the next day at the United Nations to press the urgency of securing a fair and safe global climate change deal.

Oxfam South West is teaming up with Arnolfini, which is presenting 100 Days of exhibitions, performances, screenings and debates around issues of climate change to mark the countdown to the Climate Change Summit opening in Copenhagen.

“We are delighted to team with up with Arnolfini to mark the global countdown to the world’s most significant climate change conference in history,” says Roger James.

At the event, Unaiti Jaime, who is the gender equality officer at Oxfam Mozambique, will talk about her experience of climate change and will be celebrating Bristol’s twinning with Beira in Mozambique, as well as Bristol’s leadership in climate change action.

Other guest speakers include the Lord Mayor of Bristol Christopher Davies, Arnolfini director Tom Trevor, and Roger James of Oxfam South West.

ENDS

For more information or to arrange an interview please contact:

Karen Lindsay
Oxfam Media and Campaigns South West
0117 916 6477 / mailto:klindsay@oxfam.org.uk

Notes to editors:

More on the Global Climate Wake Up Call can be found at the following link: http://tcktcktck.org/stories/campaign-stories/its-time-wake-world

Information on Arnolfini’s 100 days can be found here: http://www.arnolfini.org.uk/news

Oxfam works with others to overcome poverty and suffering.

Oxfam GB is a member of Oxfam International and a company limited by guarantee registered in England No. 612172.
Registered office: Oxfam House, John Smith Drive, Cowley, Oxford, OX4 2JY.
A registered charity in England and Wales (no 202918) and Scotland (SCO 039042)

Mansions: more 19th than 21st century...

Personally I'm never going to be comfortable with Bristol’s Lord Mayors living in a luxurious Mansion. This is supposed to be an age of much greater equality and fairness not the 19th Century. Anyone else feel this way?? An article in today’s Bristol Evening Post relating to this caught my eye…

'David Clarke, the Lord Mayor's secretary and Sword Bearer, gives a brief history about the Mansion House to the guests' (‘Tea time at the Lord Mayor’s show’, Bristol Evening Post, 7 Sept) but does he give the full history and context surrounding the Mansion House or does he start, as the article suggests, in 1874? I may be wrong but I just cant see him outlining the 1831 Bristol Riots!

Just in case he doesn't, the extract below from the Bristol City Council website makes
the picture a bit more complete and if you want more detail see the extract below ** from the Bristol Radical History site (see the very good Guardian article too):

'It is in fact the third Mansion House, the original building in Queen Square was destroyed in the Bristol Riots of 1831. [Note: ‘A popular revolt for the vote which led to the first Reform Act’, The Guardian]. Although replaced by a second house in Great George Street, this was closed in 1835 under the drastic economies forced on the City Council by the Municipal Corporations Act. For many years the Mansion House was not only the home of the Lord Mayor and Lady Mayoress, but also the lodgings of the High Court Judges.'


**1831 was a period of significant unrest in Britain centred in the political arena around issues of parliamentary reform[3] and the abolition of slavery. In France in 1830 suffrage issues had caused a revolution that had brought people to the barricades and forced the King to abdicate. The warning signs were there for the corrupt and tiny minority that controlled political power in Britain. As a pacifying reform, a bill that would extend suffrage to a small section of the middle class was introduced and then defeated in the House of Lords in September of that year. Public anger was widespread, there were riots in the Midlands against anti-Reform aristocrats, the effigies of Bishops who were against reform were burned and there was widespread sabotage in factories and mines.
In Bristol the magistrate, Sir Charles Weatherall, a notorious opponent of reform arrived in the city to open the hated assizes and decided to celebrate the defeat of the reform bill with the Bishop and other notaries. A protest by pro-reformists was joined by an angry mob who then attacked the Mansion house where Weatherall tried to take shelter after his carriage was stoned. After a cavalry charge by the Light Dragoons cleared the crowd from Queen’s Square the wealthy merchants who made up the notoriously corrupt Bristol Corporation must of thought the unrest was over. How wrong they were! The next day the mob returned with greater numbers and with a determination to burn, loot and destroy those institutions that they despised, the prisons, the houses of the rich (Queen’s Square, the Mansion House) and the houses of the corrupt (the Bishop’s Palace, the Cathedral). Some middle class pro-reformists attempted to halt the actions of the crowd by trying to convince them that Weatherall had left the city and in so doing had completely missed the point. This wasn’t about parliamentary reform[4] any more this was an explosion of class anger…(http://www.brh.org.uk/articles/mute.htm)