Section: UK

How the government killed and maimed us in Feb/Mar 2020

Michael Rosen

Michael Rosen is calling for an inquiry into the government’s handling of the Covid-19 pandemic. He has asked people to share this piece widely. Please sign this petition, calling on the government to hold that vital inquiry. Feb 3 2020Boris Johnson – speech in Greenwich “And in that context, we are starting to hear some […]

G stands for greenwash?

Tom Scott

As Cornwall prepares to host the G7 summit, destruction of the natural environment by the Carbis Bay Hotel is not a good look. Environmental campaigners in Cornwall have been expressing horror at the decision by the Carbis Bay Hotel – where G7 leaders will be convening in June – to destroy a swathe of coastal […]

Right to protest, not right to riot

Editor-in-chief

UPDATE: On 21 March, police claimed that two officers had sustained fairly serious injuries, including broken ribs and a punctured lung. This was untrue. On 21 March, in the early evening, we put out this report on the peaceful protest in Bristol. Within a few hours, it looked wildly anachronistic – very, very sadly. The […]

Time to call out the hate that dare not speak its name

Rosemary Schonfeld and Simon Chater

Politicians and opinion leaders must speak out on the benefits of immigration if Britain is to have any chance of regaining its rightful place at the heart of Europe. Elephant in the room As James Carville didn’t quite say during Bill Clinton’s 1992 US presidential campaign, “It’s immigration, stupid”. That’s the issue that drove the […]

Priti Patel marches in where Michael Howard feared to tread

Rachel Marshall

Editor’s comment: The Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill may have been quietly pushed aside for the moment, no doubt waiting for the furore to die down, but it is very unlikely that the crackdown on dissent is off Patel’s agenda at all. Rachel Marshall reminds us of events almost two decades ago… There is […]

Global Britain – a fake ambition

Mick Fletcher
British bulldog with union flag bandana collapsed tired on decking

One of the ways in which the current government remains popular despite clear evidence of corruption and incompetence is by selling comforting illusions to its core supporters.  The idea of ‘Global Britain’ is one such fantasy. It paints a picture of a country that ‘punches above its weight’, is a ‘sovereign equal’ of a trading […]

Protest to save our right to protest

Sadie Parker

On the day Priti Patel’s pretty awful 296-page Police, Crime, Sentencing & Courts (PCSC) Bill was due back in Parliament, Policing Minister Kit Malthouse, a long-time Johnson collaborator and former Deputy Mayor under him, was sent out to do the morning talkies. The PCSC Bill covers many topics, but the scope of Kit’s interview with […]

The Brexit classic car crash

Mike Zollo

“We were lied to by the UK government implying that we had an FTA but actually giving us a no-deal.” Never mind its obsession with removing our freedom of movement, the Government has driven us into Brexit: a classic car crash! Like so many other areas of economic activity in the UK, particularly SMEs (Small […]

Our democracy sustains another fearful blow

Anthea Simmons

This is a dark day for our democracy. The right to peaceful protest is a fundamental human right. If the pernicious Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill, which has just passed its second reading, becomes law, Patel and the police will be able to decide that a procession or assembly would give rise to the […]

No-show Mangnall fails to engage with democracy

Laurie Taylor

Our MP’s empty chair was part of the focus of an online, public meeting on the evening of Thursday 11 March, held by Totnes Make Votes Matter (MVM), to discuss voting reform for parliamentary elections to Westminster. “Make Votes Matter”, a national cross-party campaign group, organised a mass lobby of MPs all over the country, to propose a change of the voting system […]

Puppy lust: the rise in heartbreaking pet theft

Sadie Parker

Imagine having a pair of dogs for company. They’re your everything, now that your spouse has passed on. Between walks they like a frolic in the garden. One day you let them out as you put the wash on and potter in your utility room. When you finish a short while later, you call out […]

They were women with flowers

Anthea Simmons

I don’t think I’ll be the only woman who’ll be crying herself to sleep tonight. Lord knows, there has been enough to cry about in the past few years and especially the pandemic months; yet, somehow, tonight’s appalling scenes were the last straw. What have we come to? They were women with flowers and candles […]

The royal row and tabloid tyranny

Mick Fletcher

Good drama can hold up a mirror to the world and the real-life drama unfolding around the British royal family certainly does. What it shows reflects very badly on aspects of our culture, particularly the sheer toxicity of much of the tabloid press. Less obviously at the moment, it also has a serious message about […]

Debunking Covid-19 myths: part 4 – taking a look at testing

Emma Monk

One of the areas where I keep coming across a lot of misinformation relates to testing ‒polymerase chain reaction (PCR), lateral flow tests (LFT), false positives, false negatives, and whether the inventor of PCR really said PCR shouldn’t be used to test for Covid-19! It is easy to get confused by the different molecular biology […]

The Truss trade trumpery

Anthea Simmons
Liz Truss in front of big export poster

Liz Truss loves a good export. She loves to celebrate the ability to sell the same things to the same people in the same way as they were sold before Brexit. She likes to imply that Brexit has somehow made all of this so much easier. She also loves all trade deals…especially the sweet little […]

The Third Gentleman of Swanage

Valery Collins

During the nineteenth century the fortunes of Swanage were dictated by a trio known as the Three Gentlemen of Swanage. Two of them, John Mowlem and George Burt developed the Purbeck stone trade, contributing to the fabric of the town as their business prospered and grew. It was the third, philanthropist William Morton Pitt, who […]

The right to peaceful protest must not be undermined

Anthea Simmons

Did you take part in any of the anti-Brexit, pro-final say/People’s Vote marches in 2017/2018 or 2019? If you did, you will know what astonishingly well-mannered, convivial affairs they were (whether that was a good thing or not is another matter). Hundreds of thousands of people travelled up to London on coaches that left the […]

Voter ID and voter suppression – another threat to our democracy

Robert Saunders

For millions of voters, the most basic act of democratic citizenship – casting a vote – is about to get harder. Under legislation being trailed in the media, it will no longer be possible simply to walk into a polling station, give your name and address, and cast a vote. Instead, voters will have to produce […]

Stop using the ‘B’ word? Not me.

Kathryn Fox

Haven’t most of us, at some time in our lives, been told to stop using bad language? The government even went so far as to tell its ministers not to use the B word –  Brexit – that is. It’s been nearly five years. The Deal is done.  We should just make a go of […]

The handwringing over the national debt and other nonsense

Richard Murphy

We are very grateful to Richard Murphy for allowing us to reproduce his excellent series of threads on important economic issues. Not everyone is on Twitter, so this enables us to get great content to those beyond our bubble. We have just had another week when the media has obsessed about what they call the […]

Money, promises and how we could do things differently

Richard Murphy

We are very grateful to Richard Murphy for allowing us to reproduce his excellent series of threads on important economic issues. Not everyone is on Twitter, so this enables us to get great content to those beyond our bubble. I keep hearing people complain that the ‘mainstream media’ does not understand economics and that we’re […]

‘Woke wars’: let’s hear it for the National Trust’s long history of radicalism

Tom Scott

When the National Trust was founded, it wasn’t just ‘woke’ – it was revolutionary. Yesterday, the National Trust published an interactive online map that shows how climate change threatens the countryside, coastline and historic houses in its care – including many sites in the South West. Extreme heat and humidity, coastal erosion, landslides, floods and […]

School funding crisis in Somerset will mean closures and redundancies

Editor-in-chief

Somerset County Council shows no signs of changing course on school closures and staff redundancies in Somerset  Plans for wholesale changes to schools in the Crewkerne and Ilminster area came to Somerset County Council’s Scrutiny for Policies, Children and Families Committee this week (Wednesday 3 March), prior to the Council’s Cabinet making a final decision on […]

“Shoddy little deal” and shoddy big lies

Daniel Lambert

Editor: Once again we are pleased to share Daniel’s insights with those not on Twitter. I think what disturbs us (amongst so many things so to do) is that ministers are lying about their consultations with industries, claiming to have support when they don’t, claiming to be working with those affected when they aren’t. Prentis […]

Trolled by our own government

Anthea Simmons

Ever get the feeling that this government starts each day wondering what it can get away with? It must seem easier than taking candy off a baby to dole up a heap of lies and cruelties and get us to swallow them and say we’d vote for more. I mean, what are those polls about? […]