Dialect dropped from BCfm schedule by managing editor Pat Hart, personal friend of Bristol mayor Marvin Rees

Dear all, With no volunteer meetings, no accounts, no AGM, Bristol Community Radio BCfm has become a shadow of its former self when formed in 2007 by Phil Gibbons and Joanne Schofield. As a result in March 2020 now managing editor Patrick Hart, a long-time personal friend of Bristol mayor Marvin Rees, removed Dialect and The Politics Show from the schedule under cover of the coronavirus. Despite promises that Dialect would go out at an new time of 10pm on Mondays none of the shows we sent him were ever even downloaded leading us to conclude that Pat never intended for Dialect to go out at a new time at all, just to pull it from the output. This comes as little surprise, since hostility from Pat had been apparent even in our being told mid 2019 that if there were any Ofcom complaints about our programmes, Dialect and the weekly live Politics Show' we would not be told about them. The folowing articles appeared after the Israeli government tried to get The Politics Show taken off the air in 2018 and Partick Hart was particularly unhappy about the Bristol Post article appearing, saying it was a disaster for the station's public image. So, now we have been concentrating on the online version of what's now 'Not The BCfm Politics Show' from Spring to Autumn 2020 reporting through the Covid-19 hysteria. We hope to resume occasional Dialect shows in the coming weeks and are actively looking for a SW/LW/MW/FM/DAB station to take our two or three hours of weekly output either The Politics Show national and local news, or the lighter Dialect format. St Paul’s civil rights leader who says mayor Marvin Rees’ father Valentine Walker drove him out of Bristol, wishes his son ‘good luck’ https://politicsthisweek.wordpress.com/2017/11/17/bcfms-weekly-politics-show-presented-by-tony-gosling-90/ Tony Gosling - 17 Nov 2017 Ras Kuomba Balogun. Interview with Nana Kwaku Agyemang formerly known as Kuomba Balogun, a civil rights leader in Bristol from the 1980s, who says he had to leave the city and live in Ghana after alleged murder attempt by Bristol Labour mayor Marvin Rees’s father, Valentine Walker; Bristol riots in 1980 – how they got started – police racism and harassment; why Balogun and others fire bombed a Nottingham police station after police racism; Balogun is released from prison after two years, walking straight into job of Bristol West Labour party chair and running St Pauls’ Development Agency; Balogun organised black political activism and anti-council rallies in Bristol; which is when alleged miscarriage of justice takes place over machete attack [see article below]; cocaine arrives disrupting St. Pauls’ black community, setting people against each other, allegedly via Valentine Walker’s ‘Crystal Dove’ blues club on the corner of Grosvenor Road and St. Nicholas’ Road; Valentine Walker an alleged police informer; Oliver North and Iran Contra running cocaine from Colombia – Hollywood film Kill The Messenger – he is now one of leading media sports commentators in Ghana; he linked up with Sinn Fein, got hate mail and had to leave Bristol. Esther Giles, part of Labour Party and Finance Officer for NHS, discusses Momentum’s document about how to deal with cuts – ‘Defending Bristol’s Communities and Services – A Progressive, Anti-Austerity Response to Local Government Cuts’: the 19 points and ideas in document on how to do this; event tomorrow, 1pm at Baggator on All Hallows Road, Easton; do Bristol staff have enough knowledge of accountancy; Mayoral system and democracy; Marvin Rees’s ‘State of the City’ speech – about the budget and cuts. Local radio station cleared after being reported to Ofcom for anti-semitic conspiracy theories It could have resulted in BCfm radio station being shut down if the complaint was upheld https://www.bristolpost.co.uk/local-radio-station-cleared-after-2640648 By Neil Maggs - 14 MAR 2019 Tony Gosling reported to Ofcom by UK Lawyers for Israel after being accused of anti-semitism A Bristol radio station, which had one of its programmes reported for anti-semitism and racism has been cleared by Ofcom. The radio regulatory body received a complaint from “UK Lawyers for Israel’ over a show on BCfm radio, hosted by investigative journalist Tony Gosling. The weekly politics show, on the popular community radio station based in Easton, was reported for several allegations on a show which aired on November 23. If the complaint had been upheld it could have resulted in the station being shut down. Tony Gosling, who was a former BBC journalist between 1989 and 1993, has been producing and presenting ‘The Tony Gosling Politics’ show every week on BCFM radio for 11 years. BCfm radio supported Mr Gosling throughout the investigation, provided evidence and support against the complaint put forward. They have released a statement which reads: “Whilst we are supportive of all our volunteer presenters, The Tony Gosling Politics Show only represents approximately ten percent of our political output content wise, and less than two per cent of our entire weekly output.” Mr Gosling's programme looks at local politics and he interviews a range of councillors and MPs in the city. The show is also perhaps more well known for its alternative look at international politics, and he has a cult following online from across the world. Mr Gosling has made regular appearances on national media including the politics show with Andrew Neil on BBC One, and international channels such as Russia Today, Channel1 Russia, NTV, and recently for both Turkish and Lebanon TV. The complaint against the show was made by UK Lawyers for Israel (UKLFI) about a show specifically broadcast on Friday November 23. An investigation into the allegations was launched by Ofcom on January 31. The complaint was filed by Jonathon Turner CEO of UKLFI. On their website they claim Mr Gosling’s The Politics Show was: 'Filled with conspiracy theories, extremism, racism, and propaganda and in breach of multiple provisions of the Ofcom code.' When referring to the show which aired on Friday November 23 it continued: “We identified 14 breaches of the Ofcom code in a single episode of a programme that is broadcast every week. This must be a cause for alarm. Ofcom should ensure that an extremist is not permitted a platform to spread his message of conspiracy and hate.” The complaints were narrowed down into three components. Firstly, the peddling of conspiracies, secondly lack of balance in regards to the state of Israel, and thirdly that it was racist and anti-semitic. Examples cited included, according to the UKLFI, Mr Gosling in this programme alleged: The Manchester Arena bombing was carried out by MI5 and the Rothschild’s family; Israel is the most dangerous country in the middle East; and Israeli children are indoctrinated and Palestinian children are intentionally killed by Israelis in Gaza." Complaints of anti-semitism have gathered increasing focus in the media of late, kick starting a national debate. The most highly publicised being within the Labour party, where they have received a total of 673 anti-semitic complaints within 10 months since last year. A record high. After an investigation, Ofcom on March 1, have ruled that there is no breach of rule 5:13 which states that ‘Broadcasters should not give undue prominence to the voices and opinions of particular persons or bodies on matters of political or industrial controversy and matters relating to current public policy in all the programmes included in any service.’ The report concluded there was an 'appropriate level of challenge' on the state of Israel, and that critical views of the state were 'not unduly prominent' across the station. Offcom have, however, listed a couple of key recommendations, commenting on the balance of the criticism of intelligence services, and would like to see a more consistent challenge from the lead presenter when the state of Israel is criticised. On any rule break the complaint was not upheld. 56 year old Mr Gosling has said: “I am pleased that Ofcom have recognised my efforts” and describes the complaint as being "motivated by a wish to conflate intellectual criticism with abhorrent anti-semitism.” A spokesperson for BCFM Radio said: "We take note of the guidance they have issued us. We’d like to draw a line under this matter and continue with supporting our 180 strong volunteer team.” Mr Gosling states: “I am pleased I have been exonerated. It could have resulted in BCfm being fined, made bankrupt, or potentially taken off air permanently.” “The attempt to shut me down was not motivated by concerns about a neo-nazi extremist peddling hate speech on UK airwaves as painted, but by a wish to conflate intellectual criticism of the Israeli state policies:" he added. Tony Gosling has made regular apprearances on national and international media outlets. Here seen previously on Russia Today (RT) In responding to allegations of bias against Israel Mr Gosling said : “I pointed out six occasions from August 2018, where I had aired extensive interviews with five Israeli cabinet ministers, including the Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.” This was according to Mr Gosling ‘more than any UK radio programme had.’ The final complaint, which by Mr Gosling’s own admission was the ‘most serious’, when he aired a programme looking at ‘extreme fundamentalist Zionist doctrines.’ This he says has been common place in many programmes looking at Islamic doctrines such as Salafist and Takfiri, so it was an offshoot of this. On the programme he invited Canadian author David Livingstone who has written a book examining these themes entitled ‘Ordo Ab Chaos’ (latin for Order of Chaos) which examines how religions can be hijacked by ‘ruthless political and criminal purposes.’ The aim of the programme was according to Mr Gosling to ‘take a balanced look at extremes of Zionism against Islamism as being ‘pseudo-religious doctrine.” On the show Mt Gosling examined the role of the intelligence services in the Manchester bombings, in the week that there was a Parliament’s Intelligence and Security committee chaired by Domini Grieve MP. Despite the statement by Ofcom, Mr Gosling maintains that every mainstream press, including in Manchester, was critical of MI5, and he ‘tried to portray contrast views in his show.’ A BCfm spokespoerson [Patrick Hart] added: “Let me be clear that Bristol Community FM strongly condemns any anti-Semitic comments or behaviour. We are proud of our diverse broadcasting schedule that we feel represents all aspects of our communities and do not wish to be embroiled in a row that polarises any single issue.” What is UK Lawyers for Israel’s relationship to the Israeli government? https://mondoweiss.net/2019/03/lawyers-relationship-government/ BY HILARY AKED - MARCH 12, 2019 The group UK Lawyers for Israel is one of the quietest yet most influential Israel lobby actors currently operating in Britain. Since 2011, it has closely monitored the Palestine solidarity movement and worked to repress it, often with significant impact. The ‘lawfare’ organisation has especially targeted organisations promoting the Palestinian-initiated Boycott Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement – from academics to students unions, architects to local councils – by lodging complaints with regulatory bodies and sending letters threatening legal action. It has even obstructed the work of charities such as Medical Aid for Palestinians and War on Want, working in close collaboration with the US-based Lawfare Project to do so. But where did UK Lawyers for Israel (UKLFI) come from and who is behind it? The UKLFI website describes the organisation as ‘a voluntary organisation of lawyers who support Israel using their legal skills’. Companies House records that UKLFI was first registered in in October 2010, originally under the name ‘Action 4 Peace Limited’. In September 2016, UKLFI also registered as a charity which has a separate website but most of the same patrons. These ‘eminent patrons’ include a host of pro-Israel British peers such as Lord Carlile, Baroness Deech, Lord Howard, Lord Pannick, Lady Cosgrove, Lord Trimble and Lord Young of Graffham. The organisation’s registered address is that of Three Stone Chambers, where Jonathan Turner – UKLFI chief executive and one of its listed directors – works as a commercial barrister. Turner was previously head of the UK Zionist Federation’s legal division. Other trustees include Harvey Rose and Alan Melkman, respectively a former chair and volunteer with the Zionist Federation; Adam Levin, also a registered trustee of the neoconservative Henry Jackson Society; and Helene Pines Richman, a Conservative Party councillor in Barnet. Cementing these right wing credentials, Mark Lewis – a UKLFI director until he moved to Israel late last year – was also involved in the relaunch of Herut UK which espouses revisionist Zionist ideas like those of Vladimir Jabotinsky. Most interestingly, UKLFI appears to have – at the very least – an informal working relationship with the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA). For example, in January 2017 the group hosted a talk by the former director general of the MFA. But this relationship has been apparent since its very early days. In January 2013, it gave a platform to Arthur Lenk of the MFA’s legal division. As far back as June 2012, UKLFI co-hosted a two-day seminar with the MFA and the Israeli Embassy in London. In fact, UKLFI’s connection to the MFA may go back right to the start. Curiously, there is a page on the official MFA website dated May 2011 dedicated solely to announcing the creation of UKLFI. The MFA page states that UKLFI was formed ‘following the Maale HaChamisha conference’. Besides clearly having taken place in Israel, the precise nature of this conference is not clear. Neither English nor Hebrew google searches reveal further information. However, in 2012, Hebrew-language daily Israel Hayom reported that Israeli government officials were ‘training legal experts around the world to deal with the demands of delegitimization against Israel’. Might UKLFI have emerged from such an MFA-convened event, making it, effectively a civil society organisation established at the behest of a government? The evidence suggests it is possible. The Israeli government’s involvement in so-called ‘lawfare’ is well established. In particular, there are numerous reports and examples of its role in anti-BDS efforts around the world. In 2011, the MFA held a co-ordinating meeting with StandWithUs, an Israel lobby group funding a law suit filed against a Washington food co-operative boycotting Israeli goods. Then in 2013, the Israeli Embassy in London acknowledged its involvement in an attempt by Israeli negotiator Moti Cristal to sue a British trade union and healthcare trust which withdrew a speaking invitation from him. In 2017, Haaretz reported that the Israeli government had for some time been outsourcing counter-BDS work in Europe and North America to private law firms. The newspaper stated that ‘secrecy surround[s] the contracts’ and related this to the fact that ‘Israel does not want to be revealed as supporting such actions, to avoid the perception that it is interfering in the internal affairs of other countries.’ Israeli government representatives also have a track-record of astroturfing pro-Israel bodies in civil society, including in the UK. Filmed as part of Al Jazeera’s 2017 undercover documentary The Lobby, Israeli diplomat Shai Masot – who worked for the anti-BDS Israeli Ministry of Strategic Affairs in London – was recorded saying of such groups ‘it’s good to leave those organisations independent. But we help them, actually’. Indeed, Minister of Strategic Affairs Gilad Erdan hinted at this policy of instrumentalising ostensibly independent third party groups in 2016 when he said: ‘It’s not necessarily good that the government is at the front of this battle… it’s better that the response comes from civil society…They need to see where we can help them in the government.’ He was even more explicit in 2017, when he explained to the Knesset that much of the ministry’s anti-BDS work was ‘not of the ministry, but through bodies around the world who do not want to expose their connection with the state’. Likely due in part to fear of these state-civil society connections being exposed, the Ministry of Strategic Affairs is highly secretive. Its director general Sima Vakini-Gil has declared: ‘A major part of what we do stays under the radar’. Noticeably, Caroline Kendal, who joined UKLFI in August 2015 as its first and only employee (on a salary of between £40-50k, approximately $52-65k), describes her organisation’s modus operandi in remarkably similar terms: ‘As an organisation we won’t seek out publicity…We only want to be effective, and often it’s operating below the radar, and actually not publicly.’ Moreover, co-founder Jonathan Turner claims that UKFLI played a critical role in scuppering the 2011 flotilla of ships seeking to reach Gaza. The organisation, he asserts, advised Greek coastal police through ‘a top Greek lawyer…grounds on which the ships could be arrested’. Also working to obstruct the flotilla was Shurat HaDin, an Israeli law firm whose extremely close ties to the Israeli state were revealed in a leaked US embassy cable which said it ‘took direction’ from Mossad and Israel’s National Security Council on which cases to pursue. The 2011 flotilla incident is one in which Shurat HaDin is known to have collaborated closely with the Israeli government, as scholar Orde Kittrie has documented. It therefore seems very likely that during its work on the flotilla case, UKLFI co-ordinated with both Shurat HaDin and the Israeli government. UKLFI also held a joint event in May 2016 with NGO Monitor which attacks human rights organisations in Israel just as UKFLI does in the UK. Like Shurat HaDin, NGO Monitor is a body with close ties to the Israeli government. For example, as this investigative article by Israeli journalist Yossi Gurvitz points out, NGO Monitor’s director Gerald Steinberg previously worked as a ‘consultant to the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs’. Given all this, it seems reasonable to ask: is UKLFI merely a front? Four of UKLFI’s leading figures – Caroline Kendal, Jonathan Turner, Julian Hunt and Adam Levin – were each contacted twice and asked a series of specific questions about the organisation. These included a request to clarify what role, if any, the Israeli government had in the creation of UKLFI or the Maale HaChamisha conference through which it was founded; how closely UKLFI has worked with Israeli government since then, for instance on the 2011 flotilla case and hosting joint events in the UK; what UKLFI’s relationship is to Shurat HaDin; and who funds the organisation. None responded.