With the author’s grateful acknowledgements to ‘Louise’ and ‘Don’ (not their real names) for their personal insights into the North Shropshire by-election. “It was as if they had no real concept of democracy in action.” So says Louise, talking about the North Shropshire by-election in which the LibDems (Liberal Democrats) won such a stunning victory. […]
What was that he said about Brexit? “I’m very pleased and proud to have led a great UK team to secure today’s excellent deal with the EU. Both sides worked tirelessly day after day in challenging conditions to get the biggest & broadest trade deal in the world, in record time.” Or something like that. […]
This 2019 article is from Tom Scott and Molly Scott Cato’s Cabinet of Horrors blog. It remains extremely pertinent, especially so given Truss’s move to ‘negotiate’ Brexit following Frost’s resignation. That’s the same Brexit Johnson and Frost claim to have got done… It would be easy to dismiss Liz Truss as an intellectual lightweight, and […]
This would be a powerful piece on any day of publication but coinciding as it does with the anniversary of that law-breaking party in Downing Street and the very day that author Dr Pam Jarvis’s brother died it has additional heft and poignancy. My mother, who died in February, was born into a generation raised […]
Former civil servant Richard Haviland sets out a chilling and all-too-possible vision of a bleak future for the UK with a hollowed-out faux democracy. Ed With all the red lights flashing at the state of the UK’s democracy, I’ve seen it said we shouldn’t assume the next general election will even happen. The issue, though, […]
Dear West Country Voices, First of all – thank you so much for bringing the shocking measures proposed in the Nationality and Borders Bill to the attention of the public. Having monitored current affairs since publication on 10 December 2021 of your ‘Remove Clause 9 from the hideous Nationality and Borders Bill’ article, notable is […]
Ahead of International Migrants Day (18 December), the lives of vast numbers of EU nationals in the UK are still in turmoil thanks to the actions, and inaction, of the Johnson/Vote Leave government. Richard Haviland explains their predicament. The Home Office likes to trumpet the success of its EU settlement scheme and say that over […]
Dear West Country Voices, All morning I’ve been reading posts by healthcare professionals who have been working long shifts and going the extra mile for months now. Metaphorically-speaking, they are physically and mentally on their knees, and now in a state of astonishment at learning prime minister Boris Johnson’s new plans at the same time […]
Matt wrote to us because he is profoundly angry over #partygate. He wondered whether he should take a deep breath and temper his outrage. We don’t think he should. He’s at the sharp end. We need to hear his voice. Johnson needs to hear his voice. We are sure you’ll agree. Ed There’s something that […]
The prime minister may soon have cause to reflect on the lessons of the greatest gangster movie ever made. Tom Scott explains the connection. Boris Johnson’s sister, Rachel Johnson, once described her brother as “quite Sicilian” in his attitude towards loyalty. She was no doubt thinking of the Sicilian Mafia, and not just because one […]
The next unelected Tory prime minister will be chosen by members, and will be whoever most closely matches their paranoia on that particular day. It might be immigrants. Might be taxes. Maybe Europe. The fate of our statues. Uppity footballers. Or gay Santas in Scandinavian Christmas ads. Maybe they’ll vote to lower benefits for poor […]
It is savagely ironic that dozens of Conservative MPs are spitting out their dummies over the ‘outrageous’ curtailment to freedom that results from being obliged to wear a mask and to produce a Covid passport to gain entry to various venues and amenities and yet they happily wave through legislation that includes some of the […]
We are putting this out again in the light of recent developments which appear to show Johnson, once again, lying. This story matters on so many levels. It should be the final curtain for Johnson, frankly. Ed Forget the wallpaper. Forget John Lewis. Forget the curtains and the chintzy sofas. This isn’t a story about […]
Most people seem to think that Dido Harding’s test and trace programme (NHST&T but nothing to do with the NHS) is a disaster. I won’t go into the reasons why; you can read some of it in the House of Commons committee report. Instead, let’s just look at the costs. The government allocated a budget […]
The former French ambassador to the UK, Sylvie Bermann, went into print a couple of days ago to reflect on what remains of her country’s relationship with the Brits. When she left office in 2017, there was a measure of mutual trust and conversations were conducted in good faith. Since then, Boris Johnson has barged into […]
UK SOS: our human rights are under threat The Tories of this century want to abandon the human rights that Tories of the last century championed and established. It was Winston Churchill who, in 1948, advocated a European ‘Charter of Human Rights’ in direct response to the abject horrors of the Nazi regime and the […]
Dear West Country Voices, I would imagine you are inundated with responses to that editorial. If not, you should have been! Whilst I have never been a member of the Conservative Party I have voted Conservative in parliamentary elections since getting the vote at 21 in 1968. (With one exception. I refused to vote for the […]
The cumulative effect of a sucession of scandals, incidents of rule-breaking, double standards, lies and evasions is that, for many, this government’s behaviour has become intolerable. At WCB, we’ve often praised Simon Hoare for his more sensible and moderate stance on many hot topics. We have come to expect sycophancy and slavish obedience from many […]
Brexit has had a devastating impact on the many British citizens who have second homes on the continent. Mike Zollo explains the work of campaign and support organisation Bremain in Spain. For my wife and me, as for many thousands of British nationals who spend time in Spain and/or have their own properties there, the […]
This government has a history of bad timing. During Anti-Bullying Week in 2020, news broke that prime minister Boris Johnson had decided to ignore that his home secretary Priti Patel had been found to bully her staff, and not to sack her. Then during Parliament Week in November 2021 he tried to undermine the very […]
… and that’s exactly what Priti Patel’s Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill aims to do. Tom Scott explains why this is yet another assault on freedom and democracy and must be opposed. In St Stephen’s Hall in the Houses of Parliament, a stained-glass window commemorates the women who fought for voting rights in the […]
Dear West Country Voices, Our PM isn’t very good with gates, actually he isn’t very good at anything – except, of course, at lying; and actually he seems to have lost his talent for that recently. You will remember when he was confused by Bill Gates on how much the UK would contribute towards Bill’s […]
No matter how you voted on Brexit, or which party you vote for, or if you trust the police, or what you think of migrants, or whether or not certain protests annoy you, what Priti Patel is up to should scare the pants off you. Last week we received notice from conscientious members of the […]
Last Christmas, I kept you apartBut the very next day, I partied awayThis year, to save donors from tearsI’ll give them all something special Once bitten and twice shyThat what they say, but it doesn’t applySleaze and corruption, so many storiesBut still you will keep on voting for Tories “Forgive me, forgive me” you all […]
This revelatory thread is from Jolyon Maugham of the Good Law Project: “Remember the story of Matt Hancock and Alex Bourne, the publican turned medical equipmemt supplier, a photo of whose pub Mr Hancock kept on his office wall? Well yesterday, Mr Hancock went on the attack. He said Alex Bourne “never got a contract […]
Over the last couple of years the pretty lame Office for Tax Simplification (OTS) has made a range of recommendations for the reform of capital gains tax and inheritance tax. On 30 November we finally learned of the government’s reaction. As the FT notes: The UK has shelved proposals to raise capital gains tax rates to […]
If any organisation embodies the best of British values it is the Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI). It is funded by donations and almost entirely staffed by volunteers. It is a charity independent of government, wholly dedicated to saving lives at sea. Its volunteers are ready to risk their own life to help others, 24 […]
A regular satirical commentary on the pig swill served to constituents via an MP’s social media feed ‘Slurping at the swill for everyone in Totnes & South Devon’ – Babe PeppaPiggate may have overshadowed the Paterson and sewage affairs, but Babe isn’t letting Mangnall off the hook… This social feed retrospective tastes disconcertingly familiar. It’s […]
Dear West Country Voices, I was absolutely fuming when I saw in the news that MP and mother Stella Creasy was told that she could not have her baby with her when she was in the House of Commons. I was completely shocked because surely this is not anything new? MPs have been taking their […]
No doubt you’ve seen the crocodile tears of some of our tabloid commentators concerning the death of 27 people in the English Channel (technically in French waters) on the night of Wednesday, 24 November. They included a young Kurdish fiancée, four other women and a little girl, and possibly an Afghan interpreter who previously worked […]