Section: Politics

Serco in Cornwall – a lesson unlearned

Tom Scott

People in Cornwall learned about Serco the hard way more than ten years ago. Yet a company with a record of serial failure and dishonesty has just won another massive government test and trace contract. Some 15 years ago, the Scott household had its worst ever family Christmas here in Cornwall. On the day that […]

Sajid Javid: a safe pair of hands?

Tom Scott

Media outlets have been parroting the line that by appointing Sajid Javid as Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, Boris Johnson is putting the NHS into a “safe pair of hands”. This is no doubt exactly the line that Johnson’s government would like to hear, and it is an epithet that has been […]

Labour – dodging the issues that matter

Eric Gates

The Labour Party has launched a national consultation on policy which runs until 19 July.  As one of those consulted, Eric Gates responds by switching the focus to the important issues the document omits rather than what it covers. Dear Sir Keir, You asked for my thoughts on a number of topics in the recent […]

Covid-19 and schools: an open letter to the BBC

Jane Stevenson

Dear BBC, I am writing to ask you to review the depth of scrutiny in your recent reports on Covid-19 and children in school. A BBC Breakfast report on 23 June explained that large numbers of children are having to isolate.  A concerned parent spoke about the impact on her child’s education. I was hoping […]

The slogan: a dangerous tool in the wrong hands

Anthea Simmons

“You jabber, we jab; you dither, we deliver; you vacillate, we vaccinate” . This was Johnson’s most recent well-rehearsed and grotesquely, offensively superficial response to a question about rape convictions in prime minister’s questions (but no answers…) on 23 June. The tactic has worked well for Johnson whom John Bercow recently described as having “a […]

Discord not development: Robert Halfon’s recipe for the ‘left behind’

Mick Fletcher
young pupil completing exam paper

If further proof was needed that this administration is more concerned to play politics than to govern the country well, the recent report of the Education Select Committee provides it. The committee chose to tackle an important and urgent issue – the failure of our education system adequately to prepare large numbers of young people […]

Two cheers for French citizenship

James Chater

So, the official letter has arrived bearing the good news, I’ve crowed about it on Facebook and the champagne has been uncorked and drunk: I am now, at long last, joyfully, French. Yet in some ways this feels like a Pyrrhic victory, for which I can only summon two out of the three customary cheers. […]

Challenging the NHS data opt-out: letter to the editor

Barbara Hills

A comment from the editor-in-chief can be found at the end of this letter. I am writing in response to your article on the sharing of GP data. I am really saddened by the one-sided argument currently circulating in much of the press regarding the proposed use of our GP data. I am an NHS […]

Cornwall becomes Coronawall

Tom Scott

Ten days after the G7, Cornwall has some of the highest coronavirus infection rates in the country. And the government is attempting to cover up one of the main reasons for this. For the first 18 months of the pandemic. Cornwall felt like a relatively safe place to be. Covid case rates were substantially lower […]

30 June deadline and Brexit’s cruel legacy for EU citizens in the UK

Clare Knight

You can help avert disaster! See below for what to say or write to your MP! It’s been dismissed as scaremongering by the Brexiters, but Brexit really does have the capacity to create a human tragedy that has been described as ‘Windrush on steroids‘. It has already ruined the mental and physical health, lives and […]

Ulrike’s story: the human cost of Brexit

In Limbo

The In Limbo Project gathers and shares the heart-rending stories of people caught up in the Brexit crossfire. Here is one of their most recent testimonies, reproduced by kind permission. It epitomises the senseless, casual cruelty that is just one of Brexit’s toxic legacies. You can sign a petition asking givenment to extend the deadline […]

The Little Black Book of Data and Democracy: WCB author event

Editor-in-chief
Data and Democracy

Join us on 13 July at 18:30 when we will be discussing ‘The Little Black Book of Data and Democracy’ with its author, Kyle Taylor. The event is free and whilst it would be best if you had read the short book before, it’s not a prerequisite. You’ll almost certainly want to read it afterwards! […]

Forget this government’s twisted idea of the ‘people’s priorities’: here are some we can unite behind

Anthea Simmons

In Amersham and Chesham, many who traditionally voted Conservative abandoned the party which has abandoned them and whose leadership, priorities and methods they view with increasing distaste. Instead, they voted for the party most likely to remove the Conservatives from a seat they had held since the constituency’s creation in 1974. In this instance, it […]

Brunel Bridge: “cultural vandalism” in the Cornish countryside

Mick Fletcher
The beautiful Brunel Bridge in COrnwall

In July 2020 and February 2021 we published articles drawing attention to the actions of Highways England Historical Railway Estate (HRE) – a little known body responsible for redundant railway structures. Although operating on behalf of the Department for Transport (DfT) this organisation appeared to pay scant regard to the priority now accorded to sustainable […]

Bring back imperial measures? They must be joking!

David Love
Imperial measurements, wall, plaque, Greenwich

I was astonished to read today that the government is considering yet another Brexit-related backward step, this time on the “reintroduction” of the old imperial system. It’s not as if the old imperial measures have actually disappeared from this country – as one wag (James Felton) put it, he is fed up with having to […]

Johnson’s ‘new dawn’ Australia deal is a load of (dangerous) bull dust

Anthea Simmons

Johnson wrote an effusive letter to the Conservative party faithful on 15 June begging them to share the news of the Australia deal far and wide. He was no doubt trying desperately to distract from the Johnson/Delta variant Covid-19 failure which could cost thousands their lives and the revelation of institutional corruption in the Metropolitan […]

Where this culture war is headed – we have been warned

Tom Scott
representation of culture wars

To understand where Boris Johnson’s culture war is heading, the case of Spiked is instructive – and not just because his senior adviser Munira Mirza is a veteran of the former far-left & now far-right cult. Spiked grew out of a Marxist sect that called itself the Revolutionary Communist Party. It prided itself on being […]

G7 in Cornwall: greenwash, gibberish and glorious rebellion

Tom Scott
Giant globe centrepiece of climate change protest in Falmouth showing world on fire or flooded

It’s been a crazy few days here in Cornwall. The skies have been buzzing with police drones and weird-looking military aircraft, like monstrous black insects. Police with machine-guns have been hovering around the entrance to my local Tesco. And down at Carbis Bay, inside their ‘ring of steel’, world leaders concluded their deliberations on the […]

Somerset Levels and Moors – rhetoric vs reality in the nature emergency

Tony Whitehead
Somerset Levels

If you live on the Somerset Levels and Moors, ask simply “will what I am hearing improve water quality here?”. Because unless national policy makes a real difference where you are, it is largely useless. We are in a nature and climate emergency. We need the government to show leadership and ambition that delivers action because they fully understand what this means.

Highway holdup for Somerset cyclists

Mick Fletcher
group of cyclists on Brean Way cycle-path

Slow progress on cycle-paths One of the reasons that progress in developing a network of cycle-paths in England is glacially slow is that opposition turns up where you might reasonably have expected support. ‘Blocked by the Burdensome Estate’ set out how an agency sponsored by the Department for Transport is still undermining moves to create […]

A proper G7 job

Mark Newham

Pride, amazement, exhilaration… three words that pretty much summed up initial local reaction to news of the 47th G7 summit location for 2021. “Fancy,”I heard one shopper remarking to another in my local supermarket, “the Prime Minister choosing little old Cornwall for such an important meeting. Proper job, eh?” From the comments appearing in the […]