Political speculation abounds on whether Johnson can survive. It is apparent that the consensus is that he cannot. But let me offer a word of caution. The assumption is being made that a man who has refused to comply with every convention in life that governs good behaviour will do the honourable thing and step […]
This is a record of our well-attended Democracy in Danger event on Thursday 20 January. Unfortunately the tape was not running for the introductions and so I paraphrase in this summary. Molly Scott Cato, (Greens) talked about her work to research and then to raise awareness of the rise of fascism in the UK. She […]
Dear West Country Voices, The Conservative party has clearly been in power for too long and has too much power based on significantly less than half of the votes cast in the last general election (an 80 seat majority based on securing a mere 43.6 per cent of the ballots cast in 2019). The recent […]
The success of a liberal democracy is dependent upon active, informed, citizens engaging in debate. We can all make a difference. We all must make a difference! There are many ways our voices can be seen and heard: How to contact your MP, Select Committees, the Lords, Councillors MPs Find your MP: https://members.parliament.uk/members/commons Here’s a […]
A satirical commentary on the pigswill we’re fed by an MP’s social media. Feasting at the trough: ‘Babe’ BREAKING NEWS: The Conservative Party has made a significant investment in Facebook’s Metaverse. First amongst Devon MPs to stake his claim to a piece of alternative reality is, of course, the Captain of Complicity, the Superman of […]
The mammoth Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill(which includes such petty acts of spite and vengeance as proposing up to ten years’ incarceration for damaging a statue and the granting of police powers to seize Gypsy and Traveller homes) has been approved in the Commons before being passed for final approval in the Lords; except […]
This weekend (16/17 January) we have all been given a stunning lesson in the strength of the Conservative Party’s propaganda machine. Hemmed in by his lies, his popularity plummeting faster than a spacecraft re-entering earth’s atmosphere and hurtling towards the sea, Boris Johnson called in favours from mainstream broadcasters, three major newspapers, and his pet […]
Last week I wrote to my local MP Robert Syms. I explained the great sadness and upset I felt had been caused by the revelations of casual disregard of the Covid rules by those responsible for imposing them. While my family had been prevented from seeing dying relatives and attending funerals, they partied on. Back […]
Dear Conor, I am sorry that I have to write to you again so soon after the Owen Paterson debacle. Indeed, if truth be told, I’m also a little resentful. As well as trying to recover from the twin hits of Brexit and Covid on my career, I am also now an unpaid carer for […]
We know that Boris Johnson’s days in Number 10 are numbered now. We can’t be sure how many there still are. That his tenure will end well before the time of the next election is, however, seemingly certain. But my question is, so what? What then for the Tories, and us. The Conservative Party is […]
The Labour Party has finally said that it will oppose some of the extremely dangerous amendments to Priti Patel’s Policing Bill in the House of Lords. But others look set to be waved through by the official opposition, unless it shifts its stance before the key votes on Monday. Tom Scott explains. The first protest […]
This is a press release from campaign organisation, Grassroots for Europe. We do not usually publish these verbatim, but this is a well-worded and powerful summary of the situation we face, a situation that seems unbelievable in the UK, a situation which is a key characteristic of a repressive regime. We will be covering the […]
“The poorest households spend three times more of their income on household energy bills than the richest households spend. As long as we are in the EU, we are not allowed to cut this tax,” Boris Johnson, Michael Gove and Gisela Stuart claimed in an article written for The Sun on 31 May, 2016. “When […]
Dear Sheryll Yet another lockdown party at Downing Street has been exposed. I have written to you several times in the past and I have never really got any satisfactory kind of answer as to what your feelings are about the rule-breaking parties that took place at Number 10 last year whilst millions of us […]
Dear Sheryll The House of Lords is soon to be reading and amending the Police, Crime, Courts and Sentencing Bill. Protest is a fundamental part of our democracy and any measures, however seemingly innocuous, that aim to curb peaceful protest in any way should not be included in any of the laws of a modern free […]
The ‘not guilty’ verdict in the trial of the Colston-4 has been a gift to those within the Conservative party who favour culture war over doing something practical to improve our lives. Better by far to have us angry, divided and at each other’s throats on social media rather than noticing their policy failings, authoritarian […]
Jury trials are the latest in a long list of things which have displeased the government. Its reaction looks like it is following a familiar – grim – pattern. Phil Syrpis explains. Every time ‘events’ prompt an institution, beyond the direct control of the government, to take a course of action which displeases the government, […]
Jane Stevenson writes to Sheryll Murray, Conservative MP for South East Cornwall, to explain why the Policing Bill is such a threat to freedom and democracy. Dear Sheryll Murray, I am writing to you about my concerns about the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill (the Policing Bill). There is a lot wrong with this […]
No one of sound mind can, I think, work out the reasoning of Lord Geidt when deciding to very largely exonerate Boris Johnson of all charges relating to the funding of the refurbishment of the Downing Street flat in letters published yesterday. By refusing to reopen his original inquiry and by permitting himself to only […]
Dear Editor, I have been disappointed by the lack of outrage over the government’s Nationality and Borders bill, specifically Clause 9, which disproportionally affects black and brown residents in the UK, allowing the government to remove people with dual citizenship or with parents who were born abroad, without warning. However, this Clause does much more […]
It seems that democracy is under assault on multiple fronts from voter suppression measures and attempts to curtail tactical voting in the Elections Bill to the attack on our right to peaceful protest in the Police, Crimes, Courts and Sentencing Bill. Couple this with a government elected on lies and misrepresentation and hostile to any […]
Unnerved by all the criticism of the Nationality and Borders Bill, the Home Office has come out swinging, lambasting alleged “inaccuracies” in some of the commentary. The only problem is, their defence is riddled with what could at best be described as misleading statements, and at worst as outright lies. Sadie Parker calls them out. […]
Words matter. Every second around 6,000 tweets are sent worldwide, equating to 500m a day – that’s 200bn tweets of 280 characters every year – you can watch it happening in real time at Internet Live Stats. It’s a lorra words. And 2021 was full of them. 2021 was the year of what was said […]
Sadie Parker explains why we need to act now to arrest the erosion of our democracy and rights. In January 2022, two of the worst Bills ever conceived by a British government return to the House of Lords: the Nationality and Borders (NB) Bill on 5 January, and then on 10 January it is the […]
This is the tale of one man’s attempts to hold a politician to account for his public utterances – utterances which some would say represent an over-sized helping of double standards. If this interests you and you are one of those who, like me, are inclined to exclaim, “You effing liar” whenever a current Tory […]
Has there ever been a British government this rotten, this out of touch with the public and this much of a danger to British democracy, public well-being and our international reputation? Judge for yourself as we take you on a whirlwind tour of the highs and lows of 2021, a year many of us might […]
The FT reports this morning that: Households facing a “cost of living catastrophe”, including soaring gas and electricity charges, in April could yet be spared a £100 levy on their bills which had been intended to recoup the money to cover recent energy company failures. Ofgem, the energy regulator, is looking to spread the cost of the […]
Canon Robert Murch pays his own tribute to Archbishop Desmond Tutu, recalling a meeting in the mid-sixties in Wells, Somerset. I spent 1965/1966 as a theological student at Wells Theological College. A recently retired army officer, I knew little about the Church of England and even less about theology, but it was an education which […]
Day 25: Happy Christmas! Just to be clear, we have no party affiliation or loyalty here. We just like politicians who tell the truth, don’t line their own pockets, don’t support crazy, harmful projects like Brexit, abhor corruption and generally behave with decency and integrity. It just so happens that our region is absolutely dominated […]
Various reasons are given for the Liberal Democrats’ stunning by-election win in Leave-voting North Shropshire on 16 December. In Helen Morgan, they had a strong, local candidate who fought a vibrant, positive campaign and was able to inspire tactical voting by members of other progressive parties, notably Labour. The Conservative candidate, impressive on paper, was […]