How many of us have experienced, or can begin to really comprehend, what it is to be without a home? How many of us have known the unsettling insecurity of living in rented accommodation at the whim of a landlord who might at any moment, once the fixed term contract is up, issue a Section […]
A media tarts special double bill! “It’s media, darling!” would be a good phrase to describe Mangnall’s latest servings of pig swill to constituents. And what a marvellous couple of weeks it has been: Tory lies have flowed like sewage down the Dart, and Mangnall has worked tirelessly, attempting to transform his profile from an […]
A regular satirical commentary on the pig swill served to constituents via an MP’s social media feed ‘Slurping at the swill for everyone in Totnes & South Devon’ – Babe PeppaPiggate may have overshadowed the Paterson and sewage affairs, but Babe isn’t letting Mangnall off the hook… This social feed retrospective tastes disconcertingly familiar. It’s […]
Extinction Rebellion activists from Totnes and surrounding areas staged a peaceful sit-in outside Barclays Bank in Newton Abbot to raise awareness of the bank’s ongoing support for fossil fuels. The bank was due to close its doors for good at noon. XR’s protest was designed to bring that forward by half an hour, though customers […]
While East Devon constituents were asking MP Simon Jupp to vote against the Health and Care Bill on 23 November, he stepped in to delete comments and blocked further remarks. The move to censor comments on his Facebook page comes after a torrid few weeks of being challenged by his constituents (and by me) on […]
Dear West Country Voices, At a time when Devon parents were expecting to receive consent forms for their children to receive the nasal flu vaccine in schools this Autumn term, we have instead received a letter from Virgin Care informing us that the flu vaccine schedule has been significantly delayed and our children will not […]
He’s at it again! No shame, whatsoever. He finds time to dash into the house to vote through amendments to social care and the health and social care bill that will make many of his constituents poorer or more vulnerable to poverty and then it’s back to the day job! Even the BBC covered this […]
Social care may well prove to be Alexander Boris de Pfeffel’s Johnson’s Waterloo, and deservedly so. Out of the blue, less than a week before parliament was to vote on the matter, Number 10 tabled a new proposal (New Clause 49 to the Health and Care Bill) on the social care cap. It significantly watered […]
On Thursday 18 November, our MP Anthony Mangnall chose to appear on Nigel Farage’s live TV show. Like most people, Mr Mangnall knows who Farage is, knows his agenda and his politics, but decided that this was the kind of show he should be on and dignify as our constituency MP. The result was singularly […]
Dear West Country Voices, I don’t know whether people have had the chance to view the ‘Farage at Large’ show broadcast on Thursday 18th November, with Anthony Mangnall MP. It raises some serious questions over judgement as well as how we, either as ‘regular’ individuals or as Constituency MPs with responsibilities for the way we […]
After the MP expenses scandal in 2009, anybody could be forgiven for expecting the bad old days of MPs making specious claims on the public purse to be over. Back then, voters were furious that MPs who had inflicted austerity on them in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis were claiming the costs of […]
Decarbonising transport – we’ve got it sorted. The UK government has been vocal in its support for electric cars as THE carbon-free future for travel. The transport carbon challenge solved! Or is it? The generously-funded motor lobby is powerful at getting its message across. We could be forgiven for thinking that electric cars are the […]
In the context of the tsunami of sleaze that has been coming at us over the past few weeks, the theyworkforyou.com website’s name has acquired some extra irony. It is also ironic that searching an MP’s voting record brings up this message: Geoffrey Cox, MP for Torridge and West Devon, was hampered rather more than […]
The government’s proposed amendment comes to parliament 8 November and was sneaked out late on Friday night in an attempt to bypass scrutiny. It would allow water companies to claim compliance with the law if they reduced outfall by 1/1,000 a year. Not good enough. As Feargal Sharkey said of the amendment “it will […]
The government’s proposed amendment comes to parliament 8 November and was sneaked out late on Friday night in an attempt to bypass scrutiny. It would allow water companies to claim compliance with the law if they reduced outfall by 1/1,000 a year. Not good enough. As Feargal Sharkey said of the amendment “it will […]
The government’s proposed amendment comes to parliament 8 November and was sneaked out late on Friday night in an attempt to bypass scrutiny. It would allow water companies to claim compliance with the law if they reduced outfall by 1/1,000 a year. Not good enough. As Feargal Sharkey said of the amendment “it will […]
The government’s proposed amendment comes to parliament 8 November and was sneaked out late on Friday night in an attempt to bypass scrutiny. It would allow water companies to claim compliance with the law if they reduced outfall by 1/1,000 a year. Not good enough. As Feargal Sharkey said of the amendment “it will […]
The government’s proposed amendment comes to parliament 8 November and was sneaked out late on Friday night in an attempt to bypass scrutiny. It would allow water companies to claim compliance with the law if they reduced outfall by 1/1,000 a year. Not good enough. As Feargal Sharkey said of the amendment “it will […]
The government’s proposed amendment comes to parliament 8 November and was sneaked out late on Friday night in an attempt to bypass scrutiny. It would allow water companies to claim compliance with the law if they reduced outfall by 1/1,000 a year. Not good enough. As Feargal Sharkey said of the amendment “it will […]
The government’s proposed amendment comes to parliament 8 November and was sneaked out late on Friday night in an attempt to bypass scrutiny. It would allow water companies to claim compliance with the law if they reduced outfall by 1/1,000 a year. Not good enough. As Feargal Sharkey said of the amendment “it will […]
From the editor: No doubt Babe will be covering the fallout from Anthony Mangnall’s vote on the Paterson corruption issue. We await with interest to hear what contortions Mangnall was obliged to perform both to justify his shameful stance and the subsequent U-turn. The noxious sewage fumes were as nothing compared with the stench of […]
Peat is an accumulation of slowly decaying plant matter formed in cool wet conditions. It is a remarkable substance and one of the most important stores of carbon on the planet. According to the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), globally the remaining area of near-natural peatland (more than three million km²) contains more […]
Social media is increasingly being used by our MPs as a delivery tool for PR and puff messages, designed to imply that constituents’ concerns are being addressed. But, more often than not, what the feeds really reveal is the dark art of stage management and glaring contradictions at the heart of government policy, and a […]
“Lords’ Amendment 45 to the Environment Bill would have placed a legal duty on water companies in England and Wales “to make improvements to their sewerage systems and demonstrate progressive reductions in the harm caused by discharges of untreated sewage.” “Despite the horrendous environmental impact of the disgusting practice, shortly before the vote, the Conservative Environment Secretary George Eustice recommended to his […]
COPnes26: 31 October – 14 November 2021 COPnes26 is a two-week series of planned events across Totnes, an opportunity for the town and wider community across our region to respond to the global climate crisis. Mirroring the international COP26 negotiations held in Glasgow during this same period, the town’s inclusive, conscious community will lead reflection […]
On 11 October it finally became clear that, the last objection having been withdrawn, the Compulsory Purchase Order to enable the completion of the ‘Stop Line Way’ cycle and walking route between Seaton and Colyford would be able to proceed. This was momentous for the local community in East Devon, and the news quickly gathered […]
West Country Voices have been sent a copy of this letter from South Hams Cimate Action Network to MP for Totnes, Anthony Mangnall. It was sent on 15 September. To date there has been no response. Dear Anthony Action, not promises Thank you for setting out your reasons for saying no to Devon County Council’s […]
Fancy a bit of post-lockdown educational fun? Why not give a Science Festival a try? Think of Sidmouth and what springs to mind? The Regency architecture, perhaps? The wonderful rock formations and colourations of the Jurassic Coast? Or maybe the gorgeous, flamboyant, mad turmoil that is its famous annual folk festival? How about the Sidmouth […]
I first met Jonathan Cooper when I was prompted by a mutual friend, Georgina Allen, to cover the Totnes Passport story, which she felt was due a fresh look six months into Brexit. I had already heard about Jonathan – a passionate and highly-effective campaigner for LGBTQI rights, a champion of European values and a […]
A recent West Country Voices article on the joys of mountain biking on Dartmoor reminded me how slow we have been to develop some pretty obvious cycling routes. The one that nags at me is the railway track from Yelverton to Princetown, disused since the line was closed 65 years ago. It is, sadly, not […]