In the early 2000s, I was strolling over a zebra crossing near Highbury Corner, in London, on my way home from work when I was almost hit by a bicycle. I immediately recognised the rider: it was Boris Johnson, and he was chatting away on his mobile phone while cycling right at me. Furiously I […]
This week Johnson created a lasting link between Starmer and Jimmy Savile. There’ll be people with no interest in politics whose inner voice, at the next election, will remind them of it. They won’t recall the detail but it will be enough to put them off voting Labour. Even the most fulsome apology from Johnson […]
This is a clear and powerful summary of the ‘levelling down’ of democracy in the proposed Elections Bill from Make Votes Matter, reproduced with their kind permission: What is the Elections Bill and what does it mean for our country? The Elections Bill was introduced to Parliament by the government back in July 2021, and […]
STOP PRESS! See end of article for a shocking revelation, courtesy of Martin Lewis! This duplicitious, damaging and increasingly desperate government are past masters of the gaslighting technique….manipulating us so that we begin to doubt our own sanity, begin to doubt what is truth and what fiction, begin to doubt the evidence of our eyes […]
Genocide is not a thing of the past. Jon Danzig’s powerful and intensely personal account is a wake-up call for us all. After the Second World War, during which many millions were systematically, industrially, gruesomely murdered in the worst genocidal crime against humanity, the earnest, global, unison cry was, ‘Never again’. Those two words summed […]
The two-year anniversary of Brexit day on 31 January, coupled with Johnson’s lamentable popularity ratings (not so much sinking as drowning), have prompted Number 10 to unleash a flurry of misleading pro-Brexit propaganda. The aim appears to be to rally Brexit supporters with images of the Union Jack linked to positive words like “freedom” and […]
I have long been incensed by politicians, particularly members of the current government, claiming they know what the ‘public’ want and the ‘people’ think. The Prime Minister is an expert at this: perhaps the only thing he has expertise in, along with lying and hiding in fridges. I can’t think of one single occasion when […]
George Orwell would have understood the government’s abuse of the English language all too well. Tom Scott draws the parallels. In his 1946 essay Politics and the English Language, George Orwell observes: “The words democracy, socialism, freedom, patriotic, realistic, justice, have each of them several different meanings which cannot be reconciled with one another […] […]
Today we watched a desperate and despicable display of faux contrition, empty excuses and insultingly evasive answers from Johnson. Sue Gray’s ‘update’ made it crystal clear that rules have been broken which means that Johnson has repeatedly lied to the House and to us. Twelve of the sixteen parties are now under criminal investigation. Twelve. […]
The public has been shocked by the revelation that Liz Truss’s recent trip to Australia is estimated to have cost the UK taxpayer £500,000 for the charter of a private jet alone. That’s the equivalent to the amount of money Rishi Sunak now wishes to save the Treasury by scrapping the paltry allowance of £6 […]
“We witnessed an attempted coup this week. A prime minister, who has very obviously broken the law on many occasions and who holds the people of this country in contempt, sought to stay in power aided and abetted by his party and the police.” Richard Murphy sets out the case for radical reform. The charge […]
Dear West Country Bylines, I have this to say to Sheryll Murray after she stood up to heap praise on Johnson at PMQs: Boris has now said he will stay and “fight on”. Who exactly is be fighting? Is it the bereaved families he laughed in the faces of by holding more parties in lockdown […]
As government continues to shift the burden for services (and the blame for their shortcomings) onto councils, whilst cutting their budgets, Julian Andrews explains the impact on Devon’s budget and inhabitants. “The age of irresponsibility is giving way to the age of austerity”, said David Cameron in 2009. Shortly afterwards, then-Chancellor George Osborne announced cuts […]
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, […]