Gary Hopkins, England Manager

Things are hotting up on the Bristol-Bath railway path.

The petition is now heading for 7000 signatures.

The Evening Post, until now an enthusiastic supporter of the crackpot BRT plans, is apparently preparing a"major feature" about wildlife on the path. You can email j.hunter@bepp.co.uk with your tales of newts, bats and frogs. Could this be a start of a u-turn?

There are also signs of growing cross-party opposition.

Paul "Mr Bean" Smith has come good on his promise to oppose the plans, although Bristol East MP Kerry McCarthy seems to be mainting her silence on the issue.

Meanwhile, we are promised that a LibDem statement on the issue is imminent. While we await this, I'd like to invite readers to reflect on another uncanny similarity.

Could Bristol's former waste supremo and the hapless England manager have been separated at birth? I think we should be told.

BRT: Bus Rapid Transit? Or Bristol's Rubbish Transport?

My fellow footsoldiers in Bristol East Green Party have been wading through the plans to transform the Bristol-Bath railway path into a bus superhighway and have come up with some searching questions for Mark Bradshaw and his merry band of unelected fools.

It seems extraordinary that in months of under-the-boardroom-table scheming, the question of where and how pedestrians might cross the bus route has not even been considered.

Interestingly enough, it seems Bristol Labour Party may not be lining up behind Mark Bradshaw to support this one. Paul Smith, Labour candidate for Bristol West, has come out against it over at the Bristol Blogger. (I am working on the assumption that no-one is sad enough to go round the Internet impersonating Paul Smith.)

The Mr. Bean lookalike is the only mainstream politician to stick his head about the parapet so far. Local residents won't be expecting a statement any time soon from absentee Labour councillor for Easton, Hotwells resident Faruk Choudhury, who might struggle to find the railway path (or his own ward) on a map. And so far, there's been a resounding silence from the Lib Dem councillors for Easton, Lawrence Hill, and Eastville.

Luckily, thanks to the efforts of the Bristol Cycling Campaign, popular resistance to this idiotic scheme is snowballing. (See the Green Party's statement here.) Over 3200 signatures in less than a week is quite something. At this rate, they won't even need a consultation.

Bristol Schools Mythbuster

Blimey. We all knew Bristol schools were in trouble, but the news that 40% of Bristol secondary school pupils are being educated outside the city's state schools (20% in the private sector, 20% in neighbouring districts) is still pretty stark.

On the face of it, the problem and the solution seem pretty simple. The Local Authority (LEA as was) is failing miserably in its duties. Get rid of it, give schools more autonomy, and watch standards rise. This is the Tory view, the government's view, and the view of many in Bristol.

Luckily for them, it's already happening. Practically every crap secondary school in Bristol is in the process of becoming an academy, and primary schools probably won't be far behind. New Oak Primary in Hengrove was saved from the clutches of the Christian Oasis Trust, but rumour has it that the city's academies may have their eyes on other primaries.

Unfortunately it's not that simple. The 'get rid of the LEA and all will be well' view rests on two myths:

1. The LA controls what happens in schools.

Sure, the likes of Heather Tomlinson certainly act - and get paid - as if they have a say in how Bristol schools are run. But in fact, the LA can only really intervene in a school if it goes into special measures. The real power in British education lies with central government and headteachers.

Central government's obsession with testing and targets has, according to a major review carried out by Cambridge University, led a rise in pupil stress and 'teaching to the test' rather than a genuine rise in standards.

Headteachers are held to account by school governors rather than the local authority. Governors are by and large well meaning amateurs totally overwhelmed by the workload and ever changing bureaucracy of modern education. Getting to grips with whatever the Department of Education is called this month is enough of a challenge, never mind truly getting to the bottom of what is going on in a school.

2. Schools outside of LA control will necessarily do better.

It is a truth universally acknowledged that, once freed from the dead hand of the LA, schools will flourish.

Bristol's own City Academy, under "inspirational" headteacher Ray Priest, is often held up as a prime example of this, and used as a justification for the transformation of other failing Bristol schools into Academies.

A much quoted statistic is the improvement in exam results at the City Academy - up from 33% achieving five GSCEs at A-C in 2004 to 50% in 2006. Not bad.

But how many pupils got five GCSEs at A-C including English and Maths ? 18% - a measly 2% rise from 2004.

So, three years after glorious liberation from LA control, 82% of its pupils are still failing to get the qualifications that might actually get them a job. Not a resounding success for a school where, according to its websites, 'learning comes first', pupils are 'learning about learning', 'learning today for tomorrow', and even 'learning to live together' in 'learning villages'.

Academies are nothing less than the privatisation of state education, handing over the education of the most vulnerable to shadowy coalitions of businessmen and the religous right. It shouldn't suprise us that a right wing think tank like Policy Exchange supports them. But it is more suprising that people on the left are in favour - particularly when there's bugger all evidence that they actually work.

So what is to be done? To be continued...

Ho ho hum hum

Gordon Brown's first speech on the environment yesterday was rather overshadowed by the failures of the government's internal mail system. (Incidentally, run by TNT. Is it any wonder Royal Mail's in trouble when even the government chooses to privatise their post?)

Anyway, back to Gordon. The message seems to be getting across that 60% cuts in greenhouse gas emissions are not going to be enough, with even our dour PM accepting that 80% cuts 'may' be necessary.

Superficially heartening, and at least good to know that all the efforts of campaigners and the IPCC haven't been totally in vain. But what continues to beggar belief is the unwillingness to acknowledge what targets of 80% will actually mean.

According to Brown: 'I know this means facing up to hard choices and taking tough decisions. That it means governing not gimmickry. That is what we will do.'

But, as ever, this administration seems to think that governing involves handing out a few energy saving light bulbs. The really hard choices - like how such targets are compatible with continued airport and road expansion - are swept under the carpet.

Even a no-brainer like banning or levy-ing plastic bags - already successfully carried out elsewhere, and likely to enjoy far more public support than, say, road charging - is too tough a decision. Instead, Brown proposes to 'hold discussions' with supermarkets to see if we can all play nicely and phase them out on a voluntary basis.

If he can't stand up to business on a non-issue like plastic bags, then even a target of 8% looks too ambitious. So much for the vision thing.

Choose to lose?

Some interesting, and even thoughtful, debates about Chooseday elsewhere.

I've met a few of the people involved in Chooseday, and got the impression that they are basically well-intentioned and well-meaning. But that doesn't make it a good idea.

In fact, the most useful thing about Chooseday is that it shows just how silly it is to pretend that carbon cutting is or should be a matter of individual choice. This has become an ever present refrain in the last few years: choose to leave your car at home, choose to insulate your loft, choose to buy fair trade coffee, choose to carry a shopping bag, choose to fly less.

Unfortunately there are two massive problems with this approach:

1. It completely lets government off the hook. Let's face it, major social and economic change is not achieved by well-meaning individuals (although they may get the ball rolling). The welfare state wasn't set up by some voluntary organisations suggesting 'Wouldn't it be nice if we all paid some money into a national social fund? We could use it to pay for healthcare and pensions!' Segregation in the American South wasn't abolished by a public awareness campaign. Laws had to be passed, and individuals had to abide by them, whether they wanted to or not. Choice didn't have a whole lot to do with it.

2. People don't always behave as predicted. A report out today suggests that we use the money saved by energy efficiency measures in part to pay for other carbon-heavy activities. So you might get a council grant to insulate your loft, and then splurge the money you've saved on your leccy bill on a plasma TV or a holiday abroad. Hey, that's your choice, and if the prices of the TV or the flight don't reflect the damage done, then who can blame you?

Now I'm not suggesting that we ban cars - on Tuesday or any other day. But people need incentives, both negative and positive.

It goes without saying that the buses in Bristol should be half the price and five times as frequent/reliable/clean. And I speak as somebody who actually takes the bus on a regular basis, unlike many with opinions on this subject. Nothing ticks me off more than hearing 'I can't be expected to get the bus until the service improves'. (Well, maybe 'I can't be expected to send my kids to a Bristol state school.') What about all the people who have to rely on buses - kids, the elderly, those who can't afford a car?

But even with the best bus service in the world, people will still choose to drive. So let's make that choice a bit less attractive - congestion charging, workplace parking charges and residents' parking should all do the trick. And, while we're at it, let's not build any more roads for a while.

All of this, and more, can be found in the eminently sensible Transport Manifesto for Greater Bristol. Interestingly enough, when in opposition, the council Labour group set up an epetition calling for 20 mph speed limits in residential areas - one of the manifesto's key demands. Now they are back in power, they seem content with draping Chooseday banners over the Council House. Looks like they've passed the buck back to us hapless individuals.

local news values

Very interesting goings-on down at the Council House tonight.

The LibDems have lost control of the council, and Labour have refused to form a minority administration. This despite Helen Holland's pledge just a few days ago: 'We will not rest until this battle is won.' Labour's selfless struggle does not seem to involve actually taking charge of the city and sorting out the mess they created in the first place.

Not that you'd know from our local news hounds. The top story on bbc.co.uk/bristol/news and PointsWest is David Farr's criticism of the Old Vic closure, reported in the Guardian last Friday.

Over at the Evening Post, the news agenda is understandably dominated by headlines like: 'Clamped as I sat waiting for my wife'. (' A motorist has spoken of his disbelief after he claimed he was clamped as he sat in his car reading the Evening Post.' The readers' debate that follows it is the best thing about this story by a mile.)

Meanwhile, back in the mundane world of local politics, it's hard to know whether to laugh or cry at the sight of Labour and the Lib Dems tossing the city's governance around like a hot potato.

It was pretty miraculous that Labour managed to get through the election without the collecitve penny dropping that homecare privatisation was their idea in the first place, but perhaps it will turn out to be a bit of a Pandora's box for them after all.

a PR disaster

'Go back to 1997. Think back. No, really, think back.'

Typically tetchy it may have been, but this line was the highlight of Tony Blair's resignation speech for me.

I remember walking home in the early morning of 2 May 1997. It was a balmy night. I was a student in a seaside town. The Labour landslide was juddering into place, and I was on top of the world.

I still remember that election night as one of the most heady evenings of my life. I had abandoned my ecologically minded housemates, who must have been heartily sick of my exhortations to vote Labour, to spend the evening with my most political friends. Wine was drunk, cigarettes of various degrees of legality were smoked.

We were young, we were dumb, we were up for Portillo.

Cynicism went out the window as seat after seat fell. In retrospect, the only note of sanity was provided by a friend of a friend, recently released from prison, who grumpily told us nothing would change.

Ten years on, it certainly feels as if he was right. Where did it all go wrong? It's easy to blame 9/11 and the Iraq adventure for the nation's disenchantment with Tony, but for me at least political disillusionment set in a lot earlier.

I watched the 2001 election slumped in bed (perhaps an appropriate reaction to having voted Lib Dem for the first and last time). I was lucky to stay awake long enough to hear Mandelson's cringeworthy 'I'm a fighter, not a quitter' speech.

By 2005 I was at my first general election count, tentatively tipping my toe into Green Party activism.

Everybody has their own personal 'I've had it with Blair' moment. For me, it was the decision to renege on electoral reform. The manifesto promise of a referendum on electoral reform was a key ingredient of my post-election euphoria. Even as an avid Labour cheerleader, I believed that proportional representation would transform British politics. Barring some freak of electoral maths, leaving Labour or the Tories dependent on Ming's increasingly unconvincing troops, we're unlikely to find out in a hurry. Labour got greedy, and we all lost out. Thanks, Tony. Now piss off.