For those of you not on Twitter we are pleased to reproduce Repubblica journalist Antonello Guerrera’s helpful compliation of highlights from Sir John Major’s barnstorming speech, 9 November, Middle Temple. Thank you, Antonello. BREAKING. Sir John Major: “Complacency and nostalgia are the route to national decline” “We are no longer a great power. We will […]
Government has adopted an annoying habit of leaking news late at night on Twitter, at the weekend, via one or two favoured pundits. Halloween was no exception, but instead of another frightener in the vein of ‘Lockdown – the Sequel’ slipped out earlier in the evening, this was good news. International Trade Secretary Liz Truss […]
Historically, the City has leaned heavily to the Tories. In part, this was ideological with practitioners mostly believing in free enterprise capitalism, the small state and low taxes. In part, too, it historically reflected the background of most of its leading figures: male, privately educated and upper middle class. The frontier between finance and the […]
The Agriculture Bill comes back to the House of Commons on 4 November amidst growing concern from rural communities up and down the UK over the government and Conservative MPs’ stubborn refusal to enshrine food and animal welfare standards in law. Peers have voted again to beef up protection for farmers and consumers. Farmers are […]
As we wait for what feels like the final slow-motion spin of the car as it hurtles inexorably towards the cliff edge, wondering if our heroes are going to escape from this seemingly impossible situation … again … no, stop there. Enough with the Hollywood imagery, the tired old metaphors. They just aren’t funny anymore. […]
We like to bring you Twitter threads which you might miss because you aren’t on Twitter! Here’s one from a reader in the USA ahead of Monday’s Agri Bill vote, responding to a UK reader’s thread. We’ve added her thread, too. I’m an American, I lived in the US for 30 years and worked in […]
As we approach a crunch point for farmers, growers and food producers with the return of the Agri Bill, we offer you our bumper crop of articles on the subject. Our communities and local economy depend to varying degrees on food and farming. If small farms go to the wall, the collateral damage will be […]
Rural communities in the recently created unitary Dorset Council area are working hard and democratically to make Neighbourhood Plans. The bases of these plans lie in the traditions and desire for continuity of small rural towns and villages. This cultural heritage is under attack now and is further threatened by proposed changes to the planning […]
Despite its mild winters, Cornwall has among the highest levels of cold homes and fuel poverty in the UK, forcing many people to choose between heating their homes, and eating. The Government’s £2bn Green Homes Grant scheme, which aims to insulate up to 650,000 homes and create 140,000 jobs across the UK, launches this month. […]
Margaret Boyde is not happy. She is unamused that the NFU have sent wheatsheaf brooches to all MPs and beyond livid that the 51 who voted against measures to protect our food and animal welfare standards in any trade deals are wearing this mark of support for farming ahead of ‘Back British Farming Day’ . […]
After the high-profile shambles that has accompanied the A level and BTEC grading this year, the Department for Education (DfE) must be relieved that the next debacle likely to affect the same age group will at least be low profile. Few people seem to have heard that the new T levels (T stands for technical) […]
Aviation is a huge and successful industrial sector, directly contributing at least £22 billion to the UK economy. The British airline sector alone accounts for 84,300 jobs worldwide. Yet the ability to hop on a safe, reasonably affordable flight to almost anywhere in the world is relatively recent. Within living memory, overseas travel meant just […]
Editor’s note: This article was written in Japan and offers a global perspective on this topical issue. Coronavirus has given society a peek into the future of capitalism – observes Karl O’Callaghan – and the global economic system needs a more people centred approach if it is to survive. Robbed of free-spending customers, economies have […]
This article is reproduced by kind permission of the author and first appeared on www.ukhaulier.co.uk Descartes Systems Group, the global leader in uniting logistics-intensive businesses in commerce, today announces the findings of its Brexit Readiness research to understand the readiness of UK businesses that trade with the EU for the end of the Brexit transition period […]
When he first visited Russia in 1995, Peter Barker found post-Soviet chaos meant medicine was in short supply. As the UK faces breaking of supply chains at the end of 2020, might we be facing a similar plight? I was involved in French twinning before I moved to Exeter. When I came here, I was […]
Is it right for local councils to turn to commercialisation to fill holes in their finances? Local councils are facing the biggest cuts to government funding since 2010, with the Local Government Association (LGA) revealing that, overall, councils will have suffered a 77 per cent decrease in government funding between 2015/16 and 2019/20. This represents […]
This article references some vile, racist language which we have reproduced, rather than hide just how morally-repulsive some individuals are. Editor. George Eustice has risen from obscurity to become the smooth-talking frontman for some of the worst aspects of Brexit. In February, Environment Minister George Eustice was loudly booed by an audience of farmers at […]
A lot has been written about the impact of Covid-19 on climate change – how the transition to a ‘new normal’ could provide new opportunities for a greener way of life. As someone who studies the effects of language on the way we live, I’ve spent a lot of my time in lockdown looking for […]
I’m not much a Zoom enthusiast but the invitation to listen to Defra secretary of state George Eustice give a “major” speech on the environment, via Green Alliance, seemed like too good an opportunity to miss. So, having finally got zoom to work on my computer, I sat and listened to him talk for 15 […]
Cornwall’s future, as an increasingly commodified playground for people who choose to have their real lives elsewhere, looks bleak. In the post-coronavirus, climate-emergency world, we have to dream better, argues Catrina Davies. I grew up in Cornwall doing low-pay, low-status jobs and being obediently grateful for tourism. Mining was finished; fishing and farming in decline. […]
Farming requires a huge number of skills and a vast amount of knowledge, all of which needs to be continually updated and revised as the environment – physical, legislative and market – changes. If you think about what the job description of ‘farmer’ involves, it runs the gamut from pharmacology to mechanical engineering, animal behaviour […]
The Strawberry Line is an ambitious project to provide a safe off-road path for cyclists and others, linking the communities along the southern boundary of the Mendip Hills. It seeks, as far as possible, to follow the track of the old railway line of that name, famous for the boxes of fruit it hauled to […]
What will our future look like? The government is faced with three major events which will affect our lives for decades to come – the Covid-19 pandemic, Brexit, and climate change. A return to what we regarded as normal is neither possible nor (for many) desirable. So it was that the government began to set […]
On the night of 21 July, some 16 hours into the debate of the 321 amendments to the agriculture bill, with Lords huddled over their laptops in remote parts of the country, you’d have to be a keen political wonk to have still been attached to Parliament TV. But Baroness Ritchie of Downpatrick described this part of […]
Everybody loves apprenticeships it seems, especially for other people’s children. This is why, when faced with a problem in education and training, politicians can’t help promising more of them. But are they really the answer to the looming crisis of youth unemployment? Some appear to think so. Robert Halfon MP, chair of the Education Select […]
Only a government as intellectually incoherent as this one could publish in the same week two important documents with absolutely no consistent philosophy underpinning the policy objectives behind them. Worse, the objectives themselves seem diametrically opposed. On Monday, we got the border operating model setting out all the new barriers to trade the government intends to […]