From Salad Cream to Coffee!
A Cup of Coffee was poured over George Ferguson, City Mayor, at the Bristol Anarchist Bookfair on Saturday last. The irony is he was invited to the Anarchist Bookfair by one of the members of organising collective!!! (Correction to original post: see comment requesting this amendment from Bookfair Organising Collective stressing that there was no formal invite issued)George Ferguson is an Ex President of the Royal Institute of British Architects and was elected 'City Mayor' this year. His firm is Ferguson Mann/ Acanthus. He is an Entrepreneur who has renovated various Bristol Heritage buildings. I have had minor dealings with him in respect of regeneration issues and he is an OK guy- sympathetic, practical and open-minded.
Report from Kevin in Bristol
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5 comments:
Hi,
I'm one of the bookfair organisers. I just want to make it clear that the Mayor was never officially invited by the organising collective and we would ask you not to perpetuate this line. If you could edit you post it would be much appreciated as it is not true. We definately never would have personally invited him as the organising collective. One individual asked him on twitter if he was going to the event and he mistook that as an invite. We have spoken to the Mayor about and he agrees he could have misunderstood this but unfortunately the rumour that he was invited is now in the public domain. We also understand how the enquiery could have been read as an invite but we assure you this was not an official invite from the collective. We have a clear respect and tollerance policy, which was breached by one guest and this guest was asked to leave. It was a shame the event clashed with the History event up near you, I hope it went well.
Can you give us any details as to why the coffee was thrown, or who did it? Were they anarchists or what?
A lone individual from what I can gather who received a lot of criticism from other people at the Bookfair.
There is a lot of anger about the Bedroom tax in Bristol which is administered by the City of Bristol of which George Ferguson is City Mayor.
There was also some recent heavy handed Police action in respect of a party in Easton celebrating Thatchers death. Although he is not a Police Commisioner, he may have received the backlash of over vigorous Police activity.
George Ferguson was invited to the Anarchist Fair and showed a genuine interest in the Bookfair.
Apparently the person who did the throwing classes himself as a Sergist/Revolutionary socialist and did it becuas he sees the Mayor as the Face of the cuts in Bristol. Though this is just what I've heard. To my knowledge the only Anarchists involved where ones who stepped in to seperate the two. So maybe your title needs to be edited too?
Ferguson was definately interested to be there and says it was a great event. We understand why people thought he should not have been there but it was no excuse for agresive behaviour.
Thanks Shaun! Changed the title after your first comment: a question mark replaced the exclamation mark. With respect, for what it's worth, I think the Bristol organisers acted correctly by asking the perpetrator to leave the event. This has not always been the case elsewhere.
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