The ‘right way’ to riot

Bristol greeted the news of Margaret Thatcher’s death with a customary bout of rioting. Maybe it’s something in the cider, but every occasion between the introduction of bridge tolls in 1793 to the opening of a Tesco Metro in 2011 has been marked by lobbing lumps of concrete at the establishment.

The scenes of police lined up behind Perspex shields forcing party goers through the streets were so reminiscent of the 1980s that one had to wonder if the police response was born not of necessity but as a nostalgic tribute to policing under Thatcher. Days later as football fans were fighting up and down my local high street I began to worry I’d slipped into a wormhole and gone back 30 years. Such fond memories.

As Bristol continues under the ‘urban experiment in living democracy’, mayor George Ferguson took a new approach to dealing with the rioters by engaging with them on their home turf. I’m all for seeking solutions through compromise, but when he told those gathered in Easton Community Centre that Bristol should be famous for its unconventional side and to ‘riot, but in the right way’ he was being disingenuous beyond belief. Frankly it was an insult to the intelligence of all there, including the police commissioner who, having six officers already injured in the riot, must have asked herself how on earth the police are supposed to work out what rioting in the ‘right way’ looks like and how she’s supposed to police it, or not. Perhaps rioters can be persuaded to throw sponge bricks and only turn over empty bins so as not to make the place all messy.

Sadly his attempt to be a bit more street isn’t going well as he revealed on Twitter he’d been ‘roughed up’ at the Bristol anarchist book fair at the weekend, having had coffee thrown over him and being pushed to floor when he tried to shake hands with the man who did it. Probably just a bit of ‘right way’ rioting.

While he’s prepared to tolerate rioting, one thing he won’t put up with is traffic. Bristol’s appalling public transport is in the iron grip of First Bus, who provide a terrible service at extortionate prices.

Unsurprisingly Bristol has just been named the most congested city in Britain, a situation many Bristolians believe has been deliberate council policy as evidenced by the installation of unused bus lanes, traffic lights on roundabouts, bus stops that jut out preventing overtaking, and chicanes everywhere.

George’s proposed cure for slow moving traffic is a 20mph speed limit across the city and 18 resident parking zones which he foresees will create a virtuous circle of reduced congestion and lower bus fares by forcing commuters to stop parking in residential areas surrounding the city centre and move onto public transport instead. Claiming that First Bus have promised him more passengers will mean cheaper fares he says: ‘I take them (First Bus) at their word’, which, if not disingenuous, then must be idiocy of the highest order.

Resident parking zones are fiercely opposed, particularly in the dense Victorian terraces in the areas proposed where there is no off-street parking and many multi-occupancy houses. Consultation has been promised, however. Disingenuous George’s carefully chosen words reveal that ‘local ward members, local schools and businesses and other community stakeholders’ will be consulted. So the actual residents subject to the restrictions and due to pay for the self-financing scheme (£30 per annum for the 1st car, rising to £200 for the 3rd) are not listed as consultees.

But there’s no need to worry our pretty little heads over it because this latest piece of policy-by-press-release ended with this reassurance: ‘Sometimes, it is right to trust professional and political judgement, however much it may hurt to admit it.’ Not to be disingenuous myself, that sounds just like someone willing to listen to consultation doesn’t it? Of course if Thatcher hadn’t deregulated the buses in 1986 car owners probably wouldn’t be getting punished for the city’s crap public transport today.