Green party councillor, Gus Hoyt, says Bristol’s mayoral Cabinet has a “green heart at its core”. (Image credit Bristol 24-7)

Previously city councillors had voted for their leader. But the Coalition government gave ten of England’s biggest cities the option to vote for its own. Last May, Bristol people voted in a referendum to elect their own mayor, the only city to do so. In November, independent candidate, George Ferguson, became the city’s first “directly-elected” mayor.

Does a directly-elected mayor give more power to the people because they (rather than councillors) are voting? Or does the new role give too much power to one person, the mayor? But that’s another story.

Last November, Gus Hoyt, Bristol North’s first Green party councillor, got a late-night call from newly-elected mayor, George Ferguson, inviting him to join the new mayoral “rainbow” cabinet. Gus Hoyt explains in his blog why he accepted.

It’s a question because the Green Party is opposed to the cuts – yet the Bristol mayoral cabinet is pledged to cut £35 million. The intention of the cabinet is to minimise hardship, says George Ferguson. “I’m trying to minimise the effect on services,” he says.

Personally, I don’t get this cuts business. For a start, the UK is one of the most powerful countries in the world. To my mind, Austerity Britain is a marketing slogan to cover up the reality which is: “Stop giving money to the poor, so the rich can get richer.” But I digress.

Last night at a Bristol Friends of the Earth meeting, guest speaker, Gus Hoyt – focusing on food and energy – described the positive things the cabinet hopes to achieve.

Green Bristol food vision

Make it easier for local food producers to sell their produce, building connections with local supply chains

Turn Bristol into a bee capital (Paris has over 400 hives)

Establish a “nuts-and-bolts” food market at Bristol Temple Meads railway station new enterprise zone – if successful it could be replicated in areas of deprivation

Aim to declare Bristol a zero waste city hopefully working with green-friendly Labour MP for Bristol East, Kerry McCarthy, who introduced a food waste bill in parliament

One fruit tree to be planted for each Bristol child born so apples and nuts can be harvested at will, and children can learn where food comes from (it really does grow on trees.)

Edible beds in public spaces and food production in parks so food can be picked for free

Turn Bristol into a food capital. The city already hosts several food festivals – let’s host more

Enable more schoolchildren to learn how to grow food to eat and how to cook it.

At this point Gus Hoyt referred to the horsemeat scandal, and how we must bust the myth that affordable food has to be rubbish. When people cook from scratch, food can be healthy, fresh – and affordable.

At this point, let me invoke my mother invoking her mother:

“The secret of good cooking is quality ingredients. The first step to learning how to cook is knowing how to choose quality raw materials.”

My grandparents lived in poverty in the East End – but they knew how to cook. The UK media delights in making healthy food a class issue, as it sneers at middle class obsessions about organic food. Hello?! The true class issue is companies producing rubbish food and spending millions on marketing it to poor people.

Back to last night’s meeting. There was a discussion about the Blue Finger, a stretch of local land perfect for growing food. At the start of the 20th century, Bristol was ringed with market gardens which fed Bristol. Now we buy tasteless produce in supermarkets trucked in from far away.

And should the negative effects of climate change and fuel shortages take hold, making Bristol more self-sufficient in food makes a lot of sense. And more pleasant and healthy, too.

At the Friends of the Earth meeting, Phil Haughton of Better Food Company said that plenty of local farmers would be happy to lease/sell a field the land: what is missing, he said, are entrepreneurs. Meanwhile Joy Carey, author of Who Feeds Bristol, said to make Bristol food-secure, eight main things need to happen including composting, growing, learning to cook and supporting small shops and producers.

Bristol Food Policy Council (the first in the UK) is developing a food plan with those eight components. Bristol, be proud.

Green Bristol energy vision

Bristol to become the go-to-city for renewable energy
Make Bristol a truly solar city
Bristol can be “a living university ” for green institutions
Aim for Bristol to become the European Green Capital
Invite aeronautical businesses to use their expertise to create tidal technology (rather than bomber ‘planes) – a kind of “swords into ploughshares” idea
Secure £10 million to make council houses more energy-saving
Work with institutions such as the NHS and universities to make energy more affordable with ‘Energy Partnerships’
Wind turbines at Avonmouth are due to open in December
Bristol to be 100 % “fracking” and nuclear-free.

So, dear reader, does this gladden your heart? It did mine.

After being “trashed” in the early hours of Good Friday 22 April, Tesco re-opened on the 24 May following a neighbourhood meeting the night before.

Monday 23 May 6.30pm: St Paul’s Unlimited neighbourhood meeting.

This excellent Guardian feature gives some background to the intensity of emotion present.

People with complaints against the police (“Why was extreme force used? Why was my arm broken by thugs in police uniform and three dogs attacked me?” asked one man).

The police was represented by Chief Superintendent, John Stratford, who listened well. Clearly, he was not a riot-type with batons and adrenaline-pumping, lashing-out fear.

Someone in the audience who’d been a policeman for 30 years – now an artist with a studio in Stokes Croft – said he was holding a riot shield in the St Paul’s 1981 riot. And scared.

A woman describing herself as a “lone voice” showed support for Tesco. Sadly, she mixed-up the riot with the campaign to stop Tesco opening. Not true.

As Ashley ward’s first Green Party councillor, Gus Hoyt, (pictured) has said the media has framed the debate: Against the riot = For Tesco. It’s more bigger-picture than that and why he is calling for independent public inquiry.

At the meeting, I heard about a move to make it harder for squatters to squat legally.

Harder for people with no home – and no hope of a home – to make a temporary home in one lying empty.

Homes lying empty, as I learnt at the meeting, so they can increase in value for their owner. Such as Westmoreland House. “A death trap” someone called it.

One of the Bristol City Council representatives told us the council had asked the government for retail classification A1 to be changed. Currently the same classification applies to both a supermarket chain and a one-off local shop.

Eric Pickles, the Conservative minister, replied with no. “…Not its role to restrict competition.”

Ha. It’s supermarkets that restrict competition. They buy cheap, sell cheap. They only need to take a small percentage of a local shop’s business to sink it.

The profit a small shop makes is tiny.

But is economic power the only measure of success? Local independent shops create community. They support wholesalers and the local economy.

Money spent locally is worth more locally than when it is spent in a supermarket because it is recycled locally.

However, it does not take long for local shops to wither. Look at Tesco on Golden Hill. A row of small shops closed and Tesco’s promises broken: not to open on a Sunday; not to have a cafe.

Head of Property Communications, Michael Kissman, arrived late at the neighbourhood meeting.

Pity. He did not hear the majority of the Stokes Croft audience eloquently voice love for their local community – without a Tesco, thank you.

(One said: “We don’t want Tesco. And we don’t want the police protecting Tesco.”)

However Tesco’s Michael Kissman did hear people after the meeting asking him for Tesco’s support for impoverished local groups.

And at least I got an answer to my question: Where did the figure of 3,000 people, that Tesco claimed walked through Tesco, Cheltenham Road in Stokes Croft store in its first weeks of trading, come from?

Answering my question via the chair, Tesco’s Michael Kissman, said these 3,000 customers were, in fact: “3,000 transactions”. O.

No mention was made at the neighbourhood meeting of Tesco reopening the following morning. But open it did at 7 am on the 24 May.

Lot of media interest, I gave three interviews that day, including to Radio Bristol (1:40 mins in, after Michael Kissman, who was given the final word.)

Tesco claimed 400 customers came on its first day of opening but hmmnnnnn.

Looked pretty empty when I took the pic at 3pm.

Tesco can afford to stay half-empty (like the Tesco five minutes away in the Gloucester Road), playing the waiting game while local shops close.

On a more positive note, there may be another chance to review the planning process concerning Tesco’s traffic impact on Cheltenham Road. The No Tesco in Stokes Croft campaign has won the right to appeal against the decision to not grant a Judicial Review (the rejection came coincidentally after Good Friday).

We plan a fluffy good-humoured self-contained lawful protest in front of Tesco’s before we set off on Wednesday 15 June for the 2 pm hearing in Cardiff .

And the Stokes Croft People’s Supermarket readies itself in the wings.

I’ll drink a glass of homemade foraged elderflower cordial to that.

Homemade elderflower cordial

A revelation. I did not realise how easy it is to make.

You soak the elderflower blossom in water with sugar for two days, covered with a lid. Then strain through muslin or a sieve. Then pour into clean bottles.

Second revelation: how the scent fills a room. Light fresh notes, as I snip the blossoms off their stems into a vat of hot sugared water.

Elderflower blossom is plentiful now.

Mike picked a plastic bag-full.

We added two pots of organic pear preserve – as the Elemental Sanctuary’s Carole Fofana advised. I have some brown muscavado sugar. About 500g.

We estimate six pints of water. Mounds of elderflower blossom take up most of the room in the pan. I reckon our version has more blossom and less sugar than most recipes (hence its deliciousness).

The only technical bit is straining it through a sieve covered with muslin (organic muslin £2 from Born).

For more precision, see the Self-Sufficient-ish elderflower cordial recipe.

Lemon juice will preserve it but requires more sugar to sweeten the taste. We do not use lemons (or citric acid) or lots of sugar, and the cordial is not too sweet and has the heady taste of nature.

Third revelation: homemade elderflower cordial tastes amazing.

I am drinking some now.