Your say / journalism

‘Bristol being “a cacophony of woke” makes our city great’

By Martin Booth  Monday Jul 8, 2024

If you live in Redland near Christopher Stevens, please can you check if he is okay?

Because following the election of Bristol’s first Green member of parliament, the television critic of the Daily Mail appears to be furious about what has happened to his “beloved” home city.

Leaving his usual televisual beat momentarily behind him, Stevens wrote an opinion piece in which he called Bristol “a cacophony of woke”.

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Clearly meant as a diatribe which Mail readers across the Home Counties would agree with, Stevens has in fact inadvertently provided a number of reasons why Bristol is such a great place to live:

  • “peace signs and rainbow banners flutter”
  • “just 12 per cent of voters here backed Brexit”
  • “voters… want to see more immigration and fewer border controls”
  • “Bristol was the UK’s first ‘cycling city’, the first to be designated a European Green Capital and the first to announce plans to become a ‘carbon neutral city’ by 2030”
  • “the Clean Air Zone… means drivers whose vehicles fail to meet stringent emissions standards must pay a daily charge of £9

Stevens said that “the Green Party is on the march” thanks to “bicycles, boundary changes, Gaza and Black Lives Matter”.

He added that it is “depressing to know that (Carla Denyer’s) victory means more bikes on pavements, more aggressive demonstrations against Israel, more harassment of drivers, more all-round virtue signalling”.

Cheer up, Chris.

Bristol – as you say yourself – “is still a uniquely special place” and it’s exactly because of that “cacophony of woke” that you so eloquently castigate.

This is an opinion piece by Bristol24/7 Editor, Martin Booth, who grew up in Redland

Main image: Daily Mail

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