Our government faces stiff challenges and if it is to meet them and deliver the promised national renewal, it will need a rapid and significant shift in mindset. Before the 2024 General Election, Sir Keir Starmer explained that the UK needed a decade of national renewal. He was undoubtedly correct. The Chancellor recently commented that: “The world […]
The UK is grappling with its worst medicine shortage in four years, and the evidence points squarely at Brexit as a central cause. In 2024 alone, drug companies reported 1,938 supply disruptions to the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) – a sharp rise from 1,634 in 2023. The worst-hit medications include essential treatments […]
A Westminster Hall debate on an e-petition calling for the UK to join the EU is scheduled for Monday 24 March 2025, from 4:30pm. The debate will be led by Paul Davies, Labour MP for Colne Valley. The petition was initiated by a Robert McMaster, who stated: “I believe joining the EU would boost the […]
Hi there, my name is May and I’m a 17-year-old from East Devon who’s passionate about finding solutions to the climate crisis. On 12 March, I was a panellist alongside Natalie Whitehead (one of the Founders and Directors of Exeter Science Centre) and Regan Mudhar (PhD) at a film screening and panel discussion event organised […]
“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 […]
In an era where democracy feels increasingly fragile, the story of how American tech billionaire, Elon Musk, casually sparked an internal meltdown in one of Britain’s rising political parties offers both a cautionary tale and, perhaps, a glimmer of hope for those of us concerned about the far-right’s recent momentum. It started, as so many […]
As the priest traced a cross on my forehead with ashes during the Ash Wednesday service at Buckfast Abbey, he said “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you will return”. As every Ash Wednesday, these words provoked an empty feeling inside me, or rather a deep sensation of humility. The ashes are the […]
It was International Women’s Day on March 8, and after taking a break from calling out corporate hypocrisy last year, I’m back at it. Why? Because with DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) under attack, pay gaps persisting, and women’s rights rolling back globally, this work isn’t done. Last year, I stepped back, focused on building […]
The Labour leadership can and must do better Imagine your son came home from school one day making derogatory comments – clearly picked up in the classroom – about a refugee kid in his class who had just acquired a new British passport. Knowing your son was well-meaning but easily led, you might encourage him […]
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, […]
I can’t imagine a life in which home education didn’t play a major part. Since 2012 my life has been inextricably linked with the home educating community; from beginning my own home-ed journey at the age of 13, to now supporting the community with educational resources and opportunities alongside my Mum. The decision my parents […]
“To members of the judiciary: you are all climate judges now… Lawyers have a responsibility to adopt a climate-conscious, not climate-blind, approach in daily legal practice”, UNEP Executive Director Inger Andersen told the UK Bar Council in 2021. While some lawyers and judges took her words to heart, others didn’t. Climate campaigners have won some […]
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 […]
Just over ten years ago, I wrote a biography of the British diplomat and writer, Harold Nicolson. Nicolson was an acknowledged expert on the theory and practice of diplomacy. In his 1939 study of the subject, called simply ‘Diplomacy’, he wrote: “The dangers of vanity in a negotiator can scarcely be exaggerated. It tempts him […]
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 […]
I am an American. I wake up each morning to a country I barely recognize, gripped by a fear that no longer fades with the dawn. The streets aren’t filled with tanks, yet we are under siege. The attack is quieter, but just as ruthless. It marches with every presidential executive order that tears at […]
Numbers don’t lie – but the way we use them can. On January 27, 2025, a Channel 4 poll claimed that 52 per cent of Gen Z in the UK believe the country would be better off under a dictatorship. The media pounced. Headlines screamed about young people abandoning democracy, painting us as naive, radical, […]
Let’s break down a few things, both about ID cards and Labour’s ill-advised tactics on “fighting Reform”. First off, I personally don’t think ID cards would work in UK, because we are objectively bad at things like this, but they work elsewhere so this isn’t about them per se. Fairly obviously ID cards have zero […]
Campaigners from Devon were among around 1,000 people who staged a peaceful protest outside the Royal Courts of Justice in London on Thursday 30 January. The Strand was closed to traffic as a 90-minute mass sit-in took place, patrolled by large numbers of police officers. Inside the building, judges were hearing an appeal against the […]
The UK faces serious challenges: the cost-of-living crisis, which has been with us since the Global Financial Crisis (GFC) is showing no signs of abating; poverty is on the rise; the NHS and other key public services are struggling to provide the services we need; our economy is stagnant; our infrastructure is crumbling; and our […]
Elon Musk doesn’t like it. Stronger legal measures are in the pipeline to rein in the spread of dangerous lies and misleading claims on social media platforms including X, YouTube, Facebook, TikTok and Google. The racist riots last summer, following the Southport murders, didn’t only show how social media disinformation can provoke real-life violence on […]
Editor’s note: We are reproducing this briefing sent to MPs so that you can see and share the information they have been given. One of MP Watch‘s aims is to counter disinformation and misinformation, which has a nasty habit of sticking in minds more than the facts. We face crises on numerous fronts as a […]
Could there have been a more topical time to focus on social media disinformation? The day after Donald Trump was sworn in (again) as US President, a live online event on the issue took place, co-organised by West Country Voices. We saw how Elon Musk’s X became a MAGA mouthpiece during Trump’s 2024 election campaign, […]
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 […]
Which way is the wind blowing for little Britain? Little? Yes. We are a tiny, isolated, island in a corner of the North Sea, now quite alone in the world, lost, and lonely. We’ve turned away from our closest allies, our neighbours on our continent, with whom we used to enjoy a close affinity, and […]
It’s beginning to look as though Labour are either determined to demonstrate either that they are a) metrocentric (as opposed to London-and-wealthy-donor-Conservatives) or b) that they simply do not have any understanding of what goes on in the lower population-density rural areas of England. First there was the more-than-clumsy mishandling of the farmers’ inheritance tax […]
The past few days have seen a new low in British politics, where one of the most sensitive and most troubling crimes – child abuse – has been politicised by two parties, the Conservatives and Reform. Any person with an iota of common decency will acknowledge that child abuse, in any of its forms, by […]
Just before the EU referendum, the then USA President, Barack Obama, visited the UK and said he hoped that Britain would stay in the EU. Nigel Farage was having none of it. An American President, he said, had no right to meddle in British affairs. The President, in short, should “butt out”. The Daily Mirror […]
Going on the evidence of the Daily Mail’s behaviour over the festive season, the answer to the question is not looking good… On the ‘Betwixtmas’ weekend, I happened to find myself in WHSmith’s in Bournemouth. Walking up the stairs from the book department, I could hear a family near the newspaper stand, which is next […]