In Part 1, I looked at the state of our electoral system, the iniquities of first-past-the-post and the measures this government is intent on taking to cement its stranglehold on power. Now I am going to look at the key institutions that exist to keep our politicians honest, to scrutinise and to police, as well […]
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 […]
“It’s hard not to see the Glasgow Climate Pact as an elaborate suicide note couched in the language of blah-blah-blah”: Tom Scott’s powerful COP26 report. I returned home from a few days at COP26 in Glasgow more bone-tired than I think I’ve ever been in my life, and watching the news coming out of the […]
Get Brexit done! Remember that old chestnut? The catchphrase which landed Johnson and his cabal an 80 seat majority and the power to really get stuck in to dismantling our democracy and economy? It was a con, of course. He and his bellicose sidekick, the inappropriately-ennobled Lord Frost, rushed to sign a deal that, it […]
As Richard Ratcliffe continues his hunger strike – his second – and grows more gaunt and grim by the day, the Foreign Office is keen to reassure him and all those who care what happens to Richard and his family. “We are doing all we can to help Nazanin get home” it says. That’s good […]
Red is and always has been my favourite colour. I am by no means unusual in this: red is one of the top two favourite colours. It is also a colour which represents so much. Red is the colour of love, fire, blood, the sun, energy, life-force, violence, danger, anger, adventure and extremes. It can […]
For most of us in this country, war is something that happens to other people. We have lived in peace since 1945 and the wars in which the United Kingdom has engaged since then have been on foreign soil (my apologies to readers in Ireland who may feel that they spent a good many years […]
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 […]
Dear Editor, MPs’ payments, hospitality and gifts from outside interests are under the spotlight. The Government has U-turned on their shocking plan to overturn the parliamentary standards process to help their friend Owen Paterson avoid suspension as an MP for 30 days, after he was found by the parliamentary standards committee to have broken the […]
Reader Phil Biles has been frustrated by his attempts to get this letter in the Bournemouth Echo, not least because another letter writer seemed to secure publication of his letters on a weekly basis, despite his assertions “having no basis in fact”. Here is the letter which failed to get exposure: In response to the […]
The past week has been Parliament Week. Boris Johnson couldn’t possibly blow it up the way he blew up Anti-bullying Week last year, could he? Back then he undermined a massive government anti-bullying campaign for schools by refusing to fire Priti Patel as Home Secretary after she was found to have bullied her staff. What […]
The government is pursuing its by now familiar strategy of ramming through hideous legislation on very short timescales with no time for scrutiny. Why else did the government publish its plans late on Friday? In the hope that we would have no time to analyse or react. BIG MISTAKE. Feargal Sharkey posted this today, alerting […]
Ask people what they understand by ‘democracy’ and I am guessing that most will say that it means voting or elections. And it does. In part. But there’s a whole lot more bundled up in this word that we bandy about so freely, and that we all assumed described the political system under which we […]
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 […]
So, today, only Simon Hoare, MP for North Dorset had the decency (amongst the Conservatives in our area) to vote against a measure that got a man found guilty of breaking lobbying rules off a 30 day commons’ ban. Ten of our region’s MPs did not vote for whatever reason. Let’s be kind and call […]
I have already noted this morning that Trump is looking as if he might return in the USA. I have also noted the UK government’s plans to turn a blind eye to corruption and the rule of law. [And has done so. Leadsom amendment passed. A dark day for democracy. Ed] I am not alone in desparing. Jessica Simor QC […]
As Politico reports this morning: As the prime minister returns to Westminster, the news is quickly moving on to a remarkable attempt by Downing Street to use its parliamentary majority at a vote this afternoon to overturn the 30-day suspension handed to scandal-hit Conservative MP Owen Paterson. No. 10 appears to be plotting to crush the independence […]
We received a copy of this letter to MP Conor Burns this morning. It could, with suitable amendments, be sent to every Conservative MP considering hammering another nail in democracy’s coffin today: Imagine my horror at reading the following article by Christopher Hope in The Telegraph this morning: “Boris Johnson will attempt to reform the […]
There’s been quite some furore on social media regarding product-labelling in supermarkets geared, seemingly, to play well with a Brexit-supporting customer. The trend for union-flag-badging of some groceries to denote them as 100 per cent British has encompassed such items as bananas (!) and tomatoes (that were also specified as being from Spain in the […]
Our prime minister and wannabe eco-hero is photographed here sitting next to the greatest living eco-warrior and true hero, Sir David Attenborough (aged 95). Johnson is breaking the conference rules. Of course he is. It’s what he does. He is showing zero regard for the health of those around him. Of course he is. He […]
On 30 October, when interviewed by Channel 4’s Gary Gibbon at the Colosseum in Rome, Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson made a claim that, even by his standards of magniloquent mendacity, was absolutely extraordinary. He said: “The Roman Empire, they weren’t expecting it, went into a reverse and we had a Dark Ages. When the […]
Some background ahead of an important vote in parliament on 3 November: in September 2019, The Guardian published their scoop on MP Owen Paterson’s breaches of parliamentary rules by lobbying for companies that he was paid to advise. To quote: The documents [detailing meetings and letters] raise questions over whether the North Shropshire MP has broken parliamentary […]
This week saw the Conservatives’ announcement of major changes to the way the alcohol taxation system will work from February 2023. At first the hype created by the Treasury’s PR department was as if they had reinvented the wheel. What they had actually done was pull a major con on the public. The proposal to […]
COP26 is set to dominate the news over the next two weeks. Where does this leave our region and local communities? Totnes has started its own parallel environmental event to COP called ‘COPnes26’, continuing the town’s now well-established tradition of environmental and sustainability awareness. Here are some highlights: One of COPnes26’s roles is to enable community […]
I was surely not alone in feeling nausea and dread watching Mark Zuckerberg’s promo video for Facebook’s new incarnation (not to mention disgust at Nick Clegg trotting out insultingly complacent platitudes about regulation and data security). But disgust at the absolute sellout by someone who once seemed half decent is as nothing to the emotions […]
One of our readers gets emails from the Conservative Party and was shocked to read that they are using a government document to generate funds for the party. Are there no depths to which they will stoop? We’re looking forward to seeing you online tomorrow at 6:45pm for our in-conversation Budget day event with the […]
[This letter is to Cornish MPs but many of the points made could be applied with equal force and justification to all Conservative MPs across our region and beyond. Ed] Dear George Eustice, Cherilyn Mackrory, Steve Double, Sheryll Murray, Derek Thomas and Scott Mann, At the last general election, all of you stood on a […]
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 […]
Back in January David Warburton, Conservative MP for Somerton and Frome, was happy to announce support for a a private members bill to stop water companies discharging untreated sewage into rivers. He took the trouble to write to Sue Everett of the Friends of the River Frome (FoRF) after his meeting with her and colleague […]
By now there can be very few people who have not seen the headlines about the astonishing number of Tory MPs who voted down the Lords’ Amendments after clause 78 of the Environment Bill to require sewage companies to make improvements, and to demonstrate progressive reductions in the harm caused by discharges of untreated sewage. […]