Power already knows the truth
Don't bother trying to correct arrogant politicians who don't listen
The outgoing Labour administration held their last Cabinet meeting on 9 April. It was full of back-slapping (for themselves) and insults (for those they represent). It got me thinking about how we deal with such politicians who not only don’t listen to those who pay for, and elect, them but also don’t care. The sad reality is that they are not unique. We’re about to get more of them, potentially.
So what do we do?
First, we pay attention to what they say. Is it right? Are they saying anything useful?
Cllr Asher Craig said:
“I know that there are a lot of people in my community that are highly concerned that (Bristol City Council) will go backwards and will kind of throw out a lot of the good work that we have done in trying to address all inequalities whether that is disability, race, on gender, LGBTQ+.
“Throw out a lot of the good work that we have done.”
What have they done? Let’s take a brief look because eight years of content could fill a book.
About disabilities
Labour have been threatening to institutionalise people with disabilities at times when their care package is more expensive at home than at an institution. This plan to institutionalise people too poor to afford their own care has played out in the national newspapers, due to a campaign by BRIL, and so far has caused Labour to publicly backtrack.
Over the last few years they have cut millions from disability funding; they cut £11m two budgets ago while also arguing that disabled people should also pay for their own parking bays. The latter was rescinded. The £11m in cuts went ahead.
More disabilities, this time children:
Labour have been attacking and cutting funding from SEND children and their parents/carers for years. In 2018, they tried to secretly cut £5m from the SEND budget and were taken to court. There, the policy was reversed.
In 2021, they were discovered to be spying on parents of children with SEND needs so they could deny funding to the Bristol Parent Carer Forum because they didn’t like the people in charge. They were passing around wedding photos of one of the parents, taken off Facebook. The senior comms officer, who was involved, and even made Private Eye, left the council soon after.
In 2017, they cut the youth services budget from £4.5m to £3.2m, and in 2023 They diverted the Youth Provision budget to one organisation, to much consternation from social care workers and charities who would lose their funding.
They have been negotiating for eight months in secret with the Department of Education on a debt repayment scheme / bailout called a Safety Valve, for the deficit built up for SEND spending. This meant there was no scrutiny and no discussion about the implications of what future cuts will mean for the SEND budget and the children affected. The council could not afford the costs it had for SEND and now it will be made to cut even more of the money they don’t have.
In that same meeting Craig, who was in charge of the secret negotiations (nominally, at least) called parents, who were worried about even more cuts, hysterical and conspiratorial.
Another example of how the administration treats disabled people is the disparity between the disability commissioner role, which is unpaid, with the night-time-economy tsar role, which is paid at £50k a year so they can lobby for nightclubs.
LGBT+
Craig mentioned great work they’d done for LGBT+ populations although it is unclear to what she was referring. The mayor’s Evangelical church, Hope Chapel, is linked to anti-LGBT+ churches in the US, the Bethel School of Supernatural Ministry, to anti-LGBT+ churches in Bristol such as Woodlands Church, and his pastors have said they would not bless a same-sex marriage.
From his church and its network, the mayor has brought to Bristol City Council, the following people:
Jez Sweetland (director of Bristol Housing Festival),
Jessie Wilde (from Christ Church, Clifton to Bristol Housing Festival)
Tory peer and evangelist Nat Wei,
David Barclay (Good Faith Partnership),
Rob Scott Cook from Woodlands who gave the city its ‘City of Hope’ designation,
Rachel Molano, a Bethel graduate and the mayor’s faith advisor,
Ed Rowberry, head of the city office briefly and involved with many council initiatives through the Bristol and Bath Regional Capital, and
Andy Street who has been put in charge of City Funds.
The first mayor of Bristol, George Ferguson, refused to attend a hustings at Woodlands Church because of their homophobic comments.
Race
The mayor calls the public ignorant and alludes to them thinking dealing with racial inequality is about token gestures such as eating ethnic food. He forgets or ignores that people whose lives his administration has affected, such whose inner city school he shut down, make the ‘ethnic’ food.
He talks about systemic inequality while ignoring the fact that he shut down a school because the council would not fund its debts. He then gave the school to the Cathedral Trust academy and gave them an additional £100k for costs. The school, after years, finally had an asbestos check, and the dangerous substance was indeed found. The school was repaired for the wealthy new owners while the state school pupils had to find new places.
He also gave £900k to the Cathedral Schools Trust for infrastructure costs from the general school fund.
The state school that was shut down had a higher percentage of children eligible for free school meals and was a highly mixed school in terms of ethnicity. It drew many of its pupils from the council houses nearby on Jacobs Wells and off Anchor Road.
Women
Health, education and SEND directly affect more women than men. They particularly affect poorer women who can’t displace the hours of care they need to provide because they can’t afford private help. The social care environment is incredibly gendered. Many parents and carers of children with SEND needs cannot find employment because their children can’t go to school. There aren’t enough specialist school places. Labour has not provided for them.
Under the Labour administration we have seen millions cut to funding for disabilities and a destruction of many SEND children’s futures.
These things aren’t in doubt or even hidden. So how do we talk about them with our politicians who ignore them and don’t listen?
Here’s an idea: we don’t.
There is no point in wasting our time and energy talking to people who will never acknowledge their own wrong doings.
As Noam Chomsky says: we don’t have to speak our truth to power; power already knows it. What we need to do is educate each other so we can organise and topple these people who cause the harm.
Don’t waste your time worrying about correcting them.
What we need to do is understand what their actions mean.
We can then choose better.
Thanks for Sharing Joanna no difference to Liverpool Council Labour of Course
The same playbook