As every farmer, horse/livestock-owner knows, this incessant and heavy rain has been a nightmare for keeping animals healthy and happy. Hay, haylage and silage stocks are running low because any grazing has disappeared under the mud and the prospect of turning animals out looks further off than ever. Sheep and cattle farmers have barns and […]
Anita wrote to us, prefacing her piece thus: “My husband Ian Jacques wrote a few letters – mostly with a great deal of wit – and West Country Voices kindly published a few. Unfortunately, he passed away, aged 74, on January 3 2026, after a short illness. By way of an obituary, I wonder if […]
Dear Editor, Trump’s every word, every garbled utterance is catapulted round the globe as though he were the oracle, he the saviour of the world. How did it come to be that this orange man-child can spew such hatred, instil such fear, and everyone stops to listen? I hope that we will be able to […]
Stop calling this a food crisis, because a crisis suggests confusion or happenstance, and nothing about what is happening in Gaza is unintentional. People are not running out of food; they are being pushed into starvation so deep that families are forced to eat expired flour crawling with insects, soaked in rodent waste, and covered […]
It feels as though 2025 has been another tough, ugly year and worse than the last. Empowered by Trump, Musk and a large portion of the media, racism, misogyny, environmental destruction, fascism, cruelty and greed proudly strut the world stage, trampling the vulnerable and attempting to silence opposition. It is tempting to disngage from this […]
A couple of weeks ago, we published Simon Chater’s account of the work of Care4Calais. Now the weather has changed – cold, wet and brutal and whilst Care4Calais usually see a dip in those needing their help in the winter months, this is not the case this year as war, climate and persecution drive more […]
We interviewed organiser Simon Oldridge ahead of this crucial event on 27 November, and now we want to share Simon’s post giving us some more insights into the scale of the operation and the help he was given to pull it off. We’ve had to unlink the many names, but you can google them easily […]
Yes, young people have too much pressure and expectation and it feels like nobody listens to you. We get it and we want to help. Share your voice, get published, and pocket some (not much) cash in the South West Future Journalists Awards. West Country Voices, Totnes Pulse and the PRSD have put their collective […]
84 per cent of Cornish residents support a ban on bottom trawling in marine protected areas (MPAs) Bottom trawling, which destroys reefs, seagrass and marine life, remains legal in all Cornish MPAs in the consultation despite bans elsewhere in the UK Iconic fish stocks are collapsing: cod in the Celtic Sea is down 98 per cent since 2012 and mackerel is down 78 percent over the last decade A new Cornwall-wide […]
Do we truly have the kind of democracy in our country which is fit for the challenges of the 21st Century? Does our government fairly represent the views and aspirations of voters? How can we best tackle and mitigate the effects of climate change? All these questions, and more, will be up for debate in […]
As Donald Trump arrived in the UK on a state visit, a new tool was launched to show exactly what NHS patients would pay if Britain adopted the kind of insurance-based system pushed by Trump and his corporate backers. My NHS Bill (MyNHSBill.com) reveals the true cost of American-style healthcare by letting users enter NHS treatments […]
Dear Anna, I am increasingly concerned by the daily parroting of Farage’s far right immigration garbage by Keir Starmer and other senior Labour figures. This is a race to the bottom that Labour will not win. Everyone I talk to is either unimpressed by it because they are either left wing and it’s against traditional […]
On Tuesday 12 August, every single hourly news bulletin was led by a single, grossly misleading, and grossly biased story, designed to a) further fuel the misguided flames of outrage about tiny numbers of people trying to reach this country in small boats and b) to discredit the Labour Party’s work on this issue. As […]
WHAT: The Pilgrims: Our First Undocumented Immigrants demonstrationWHEN: Sunday 17 August 2025 1:00pm – 3:00pmWHERE: Mayflower Steps, The Barbican, Plymouth, PL1 2LR Protesting immigration raids, detainment camps, and deportation in the USAPlymouth, England – On Sunday, 17 August 2025, Indivisible Southwest and Americans for Action Bristol will join together to host a demonstration at the Mayflower […]
This information is from the Community Integration and Advocacy Centre – vital to counter the manufactured anger that is poisoning society and our political discourse Here are 10 prevalent misconceptions regarding asylum hotels, clarified and refuted with accurate information for you to share, particularly if you are sick of hearing the same tired and often […]
You may well have seen that a large number of MPs abstained on the vote to proscribe Palestine Action – a vote which the government nonetheless won. A colleague wrote to their LibDem MP, asking why he had abstained. In fact, all 72 LibDems abstained, with six abstaining ‘actively’ by voting both ways. (This is […]
Dear Editor, Please can you reassure me? I was reading Alastair Campbell’s diary this week in the New European (now re-named the New World) and I came across this snippet concerning the BBC; “The refrain of a very senior BBC executive is that the Beeb must ‘shed its woke image and reflect the populist anger […]
Thousands of people are expected to rally at noon on Haytor on Dartmoor this bank holiday Monday (26 May) to call on the government to pass a new Right to Roam Act. The rally comes in the wake of the Supreme Court’s unanimous verdict upholding the right to wild camp on Dartmoor, quashing a long-running […]
Summer is Ready! Field System’s May Day Celebration, Thursday 1 May and Saturday 3 May. This Beltane, why not head for the historic stannary town of Ashburton, where Field System Gallery and Ashburton Arts Centre present a town-wide and inclusive celebration of the arrival of summer. This is a May Day celebration for our time. […]
Dear Editor, Does anyone else wonder where our diplomats in the US have been over the past six months? All this madness keeps being presented as if it came out literally yesterday. Yet another way of isolating the UK, making Brexit even worse. It’s sobering to think that almost US $5tn [now $9.3tn] has been […]
Dear Editor, Seaton Hospital is an issue in the local elections on May 1. The hospital steering committee submitted a proposal for using the threatened wing to NHS Property Services nine months ago. They have still not given us an answer. We have been fighting to save the hospital since 2016, when they first threatened […]
“Tax our wealth” – that’s the message from millionaires across the UK who are taking their campaign out on the road ahead of the Government’s Spring Statement. Patriotic Millionaires UK has commissioned a fleet of mobile billboards to tour towns and cities across the country to tell people and constituency MPs: a tax of two […]
President Trump intends to unleash a timber cutting spree within the U.S. and has already given oil companies permission to continue ravaging our environment with the instruction “Drill, Baby, Drill”. These follow the worst wildfires in U.S history with an estimated $250bn in damages in California. This was the gold medal crisis – 26 other recent events in […]
Dear Editor, The Munich Security Conference and yesterday’s TV mugging of President Zelensky could hardly make clearer where US government loyalties lie. And yet there are still over 60,000 US troops stationed in Europe. Whose side are they on? What is the danger that they may potentially stand aside in the event of Russian aggression, […]
With thanks to Darby Saxbe, Professor of Psychology at University of Southern California: neuroendocrinology of close relationships, particularly plasticity across the transition to parenthood. Writing the book ‘Dad Brain’ for Flatiron Books, about the neurobiology of fatherhood. Darby got this information from a program officer at the National Science Foundation ((NSF): a list of keywords […]
Asif Kapadia’s dystopian drama explores where current events and politics could lead over the next few decades. It’s the year 2073 and the worst fears of modern life have been realized. Surveillance drones fill the burnt orange skies and militarized police roam the wrecked streets, while survivors hide away underground, struggling to remember a free […]
This week, MPs debated the Ten Minute Rule Bill on dark money, put forward by APPG for Fair Elections Member Manuela Perteghella. The bill, which passed its first reading unopposed on Wednesday, would: Put a cap on political donations; Launch a review into where this cap should be set; Restrict donations made by foreign nationals through […]
Totnes Make Votes Matter (MVM) group are participating in the national MVM’s action day on Saturday 1st February between 10.00 and 13.00. We shall be outside the Mansion in Fore Street, Totnes with a huge Valentine’s card saying how much we would all love proportional representation (PR) for Westminster elections. We hope to fill […]
Starmer, baby, just slip a few new bills under the tree… The Climate and Nature Bill…second reading January 24. Please back it and give us a future – a GREEN future! Embrace the petition calling for a public consultation on freedom of speech and disinformation! If you aren’t up to speed with what disinformation is […]
Press release from Andrew George, MP for West Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly: The government’s announced planning policy risks putting “greed before need” and is “destined to fail”. Deputy Prime Minister, Angela Rayner, launched changes to the National Planning Policy Framework, which the government says will meet its ambitious housebuilding targets – one and […]