Section: UK

Women’s football: what will the legacy really be? Letter to the editor

Editor-in-chief

Dear West Country Voices, Even if we aren’t remotely interested in sport, I think we can all rejoice unequivocally at the success of the England women’s football team in the European championships; it’s an achievement to be celebrated. I’m sure I’m not alone in being delighted at their win if only because they have done […]

Human Rights? No, thanks, we’re British!

Mark E Thomas

The UK Government has a Bill of Rights bill which (at the time of writing) is in the Commons for its second reading. Many civil liberties commentators have expressed alarm about the Bill, suggesting that it risks watering down the rights of UK citizens. Are they right to be concerned about the Bill, or are they over-reacting? They are […]

The Right Honourable Thatcher body-double…

Mr Rushforth

Mr Rushforth humbly puts before the discerning public his latest tribute to the lawmakers of this sceptred isle, who work so tirelessly and ceaselessly on behalf of us all – the privileged and better bred of our society and the feckless and indeterminate mass of common people, alike… Behold, the Right Honourable Thatcher body-double, Liz […]

Nadine Dorries is in Birmingham – and it’s fantastic.

Ian Shaw

Sporty spice! Nadine Dorries has been temporarily removed from her very special own and very, very eager Truss-supporting (sozzers) campaignette. Nadine Dorries is in Birmingham. And it’s fantastic. A momentary diversion for this bizarre Secretary of State, now that the glitter and dust has settled on her UK-hosts-Eurovision triumph. ‘Fantastic’ she tweeted. Dorries pops the […]

Welcome to the Covid Fit campaign!

Dr Dan Goyal

Hey, guys. I have been working on something for a while now, partly to feel more useful and partly to take back some control from an indifferent leadership. Covid Fit is a campaign trying to reduce some of the risk factors associated with Severe Covid. We are in a much better place now if we […]

Liz Truss: Tory leadership frontrunner – for now

Sadie Parker

From “Cameron Cutie” to “Johnson Jingle” – so-called because she is one of the last to sing the outgoing prime minister Boris Johnson’s praises, albeit out of tune with the public – Mary Elizabeth “Liz” Truss has had a meteoric rise over the past twelve years of Conservative government. It is all the more astonishing […]

Wrong diagnosis

Jon Danzig

“Quit the EU to save our #NHS” said the Daily Express It was the wrong diagnosis, but voters believed it. The latest news is that the NHS is facing “the greatest workforce crisis in its history”, which is bringing our health service to its knees. NHS England is facing a chronic and dangerous shortage of […]

A government allergic to scrutiny blames the ‘deep state’. UPDATE

Phil Syrpis

Johnson’s ‘deep state’ conspiracy theory has, quite rightly, attracted a lot of negative comment. This article identifies some of the collisions his government has had with people and institutions who stand in its way. This government has consistently acted against people and institutions which seek to subject government action to scrutiny and accountability. Here are […]

Two years of telling it like it is.

Editor-in-chief

Wow! It’s our second birthday on 23 July. We started out as West Country Bylines and now we’ve completed nearly 7 months as West Country Voices and all thanks to the same great team of editors and proof readers, excellent writers – some new, some longstanding contributors – and a growing band of loyal readers […]

Education in crisis, and it can only get worse

Mick Fletcher

In any sane context the car crash that is Conservative education policy would be enough to bring down a government by itself.  The schools bill before Parliament has been so savaged in the House of Lords that ministers have stripped out 18 of the key clauses, leaving it bereft of its original purpose, yet doing […]

What does the new Covid-19 wave tell us?

Emma Monk

‘Are we in a new Covid-19 wave?’ asks molecular biologist, Emma Monk This week the Office for National Statistics (ONS) announced we had hit a horrifying milestone: recording 200,000 Covid deaths in the UK since the start of the pandemic. But look around the shops and on the trains and you’d be forgiven for thinking […]

The lifting of the ‘colour bar’

Jon Danzig

Invited to come to Britain in the 1950s, when the country was massively short of workers (sound familiar?), Asquith Xavier left Dominica where he had been a police officer and in the army. For ten years, he worked as a porter at Marylebone station in London. Then, in the spring of 1966, the 46-year-old decided […]

Mordaunt by name, piquant by nature

Sadie Parker

“Mordaunt” is a Norman surname. It belonged to one of the Conqueror’s henchmen who came over with him in 1066 and is thought to derive from the French expression, “mort d’entaille” (or something similar), which quite literally means “death by cuts”. Liz Truss, now Foreign Secretary and Penny Mordaunt’s former boss at the Department for […]

Put on your thinking caps! Letter to the editor

Nicola Tipton

Dear West Country Voices, Like many others up and down the land, I was delighted by the news of Boris Johnson’s resignation. It has taken long enough. However, my euphoria has rapidly dissipated as I have forced myself to witness the pathetic farce of the leadership race. Even referring to it as a ‘race’ with […]

Say ‘cheese’!

Ian Shaw

Accidently just watched Liz Padded Hernia Belt and her leadership bid speech. It looked like it was filmed through her tights on a Nokia and if some eager young SpAD had plonked the instructions to a combi-boiler in front of Truss, she would have given it equal credence. A curiously and suddenly profound Northernness, peppered […]

Bojo’s ‘bucket’ list

Mr Rushforth

Mr Rushforth acknowledges that Brexit is not ‘done’ and had, in the great tradition of the adaptable Mr Johnson, two versions of his cartoon – one with Brexit crossed off and one with it not. Johnson certainly f**ked it up, along with everything else he touched. Will the new leader and PM consider it done […]

Stop Rwanda flights! Twitterstorm and demo/live share 12 July!

Editor-in-chief

Dear West Country Voices, As a matter of urgency I write to remind you of the court case challenging the Government’s policy on forced deportation to Rwanda of asylum seekers and refugees to the UK. There is a live protest outside the Royal Courts of Justice in London TOMORROW (July 12) with a LIVE share […]

The week in Tory

Russ In Cheshire

Here we go again. Like the shoe-stretchers my mum got me for Christmas, the Tories are the stinky gift that keeps on giving. Let’s dive in… 1. Previously on The Week In Tory: thermonuclear tribunal magnet Boris Johnson battled to survive, as Steve Baker told the BBC “I believe the Conservative Party is the only […]

Wildlife, wilderness and the English landscape

Mick Fletcher

The contrast was dramatic and instructive. Only a day after walking around the deer park at Petworth House, I took a footpath through the grounds of Knepp Castle, a pioneering ‘rewilding’ project in the heart of Sussex. The two estates are less than half an hour apart by car, but a world apart in terms […]

Ella’s Law – the right to breathe clean air

Tom Scott

A Bill led by Baroness Jenny Jones through the House of Lords received strong cross-party support at its second reading today and holds out a real opportunity to save tens of thousands of lives every year, while greatly improving the quality of life in towns and cities across the country – including the South West. […]

Clownfall and Brexit

Molly Scott Cato

There is no question that the fates of Boris Johnson and Brexit are inextricably linked. It is impossible to imagine that the UK would have abandoned its 40-year relationship with the EU had it not been for this young journalist making his name through inventing nonsense stories about the Eurocracy and for the same man, […]