Somerset County Council shows no signs of changing course on school closures and staff redundancies in Somerset Plans for wholesale changes to schools in the Crewkerne and Ilminster area came to Somerset County Council’s Scrutiny for Policies, Children and Families Committee this week (Wednesday 3 March), prior to the Council’s Cabinet making a final decision on […]
Reading a tweet by South Devon MP Gary Streeter lavishing praise on Johnny Mercer’s lobbying for sealing the deal for a freeport in Plymouth, I was struck that perhaps he was giving the game away: that while there is much work undertaken by council staff, regional development specialists and key industry partners in the technical […]
Editor: Once again we are pleased to share Daniel’s insights with those not on Twitter. I think what disturbs us (amongst so many things so to do) is that ministers are lying about their consultations with industries, claiming to have support when they don’t, claiming to be working with those affected when they aren’t. Prentis […]
Laurie Taylor of Make Votes Matter in Totnes : Our local Make Votes Matter (MVM) group has been working hard to develop something in the place of the ‘lobby’ about Electoral Reform which Totnes MP Anthony Mangnall (AM) has refused to have with us. We have decided on a different zoom event where we will […]
“This one year changed my life, my values and my appreciation of those of others”. As an undergraduate studying Spanish and French in 1969, I really didn’t want to spend a year abroad, and it wasn’t compulsory to do so in those days. My arm was twisted by my tutor, and I spent a year […]
Department for International Trade (DIT) tweets are easy to distinguish from those of other government departments by their exuberant use of emojis. “Good to speak to my counterparts from across the EEA EFTA states about our live negotiations on a new trade deal,” tweeted junior trade minister Ranil Jayawardena after the meeting on February 25th. […]
From the Cheltenham super-spreader festival, to the heroic hosting of vaccination centres, to fellow-jockeys Hancock and Harding overseeing Track and Trace, the connections between the worlds of horse racing and politics run deep. Let’s take a look at the runners and riders: Sport of Kings Horse racing is a hugely valuable industry with estimates putting […]
The anarchist activist Emma Goldman is reputed to have said, “If voting changed anything, they’d make it illegal.” Local Government Secretary Robert Jenrick must have been listening and has just decided that you can’t vote to change who runs Somerset County Council. On Thursday 6 May the electors of Somerset go to the polls to […]
Will Poole soon become a ‘freeport’? Yes, if Drew Mellor, Conservative leader of Bournemouth Christchurch Poole (BCP) Council, gets his way. As the Brexit transition period approached in December 2020, Drew Mellor announced plans for a joint bid to government from Bournemouth Airport and the Port of Poole. The bid also includes the Dorset’s local […]
Tackling the climate emergency starts on your doorstep Helston Climate Action Group has brought together people of all ages and backgrounds to find imaginative – and fun – ways to cut carbon emissions. And it’s also been bringing real mental health benefits to local people during the pandemic. Last week, Katharine Lewis, one of the […]
A number of people are suggesting myself and others in the shellfish industry have been lazy, stupid (or both) for not being ‘prepared’ for the carnage Brexit has caused on the shellfish export industry. If we predicted this, why weren’t we ready? Many small shellfish businesses don’t have the money needed to build a depuration […]
Editor: Proof that George Eustice knew about the ban and has been lying… UPDATE: George Eustice was being deceptive on TV. I have read the Fisheries section of the TCA and undepurated shellfish export isn’t mentioned. This omission means the UK would abide by current EU regulations [for Third Countries] if it isn’t in Exit […]
Just 24 hours after Sir James Bevan, the chief executive of the Environment Agency, (EA) issued dire warnings about the impact of the climate crisis on lives and livelihoods, the very same agency drops pollution incident reporting. This relaxation in reporting seems at odds with Bevan’s passionate call to the government – and the public […]
Small businesses are the backbone of our economy. Indeed, small and medium-sized enterprises (SME) which are defined as businesses with fewer than 250 employees, accounted for 60 per cent of all private sector jobs in the UK, a total of 16.6m. Make no mistake about it, SMEs are crucial to the UK’s economy and their […]
Saturday 20 February was the 50th day since Boris Johnson’s Trade and Cooperation Agreement (TCA) came into effect. Anyone expecting it to settle all questions, or even most of the details, of how we will do business with the EU from now on will be mightily disappointed. The proverbial expression of something being ‘as full […]
The export of live music, which earns the UK billions and is the only source of income for countless musicians, support crew and suppliers, has been stopped in its tracks – and not only by Covid-19. Visas take months. UK trucks are not permitted to drive between gigs. Customs documentation is needed in volumes not […]
Nobody wants to see a repeat of the distressing Windrush scandal. British citizens of West Indian origin were deported because they had no paperwork to prove their entitlement to stay, the Home Office having destroyed it between 2010 and 2013. Yet, this is what we risk if people with citizenship of any EU or EEA […]
Update from the Editor: Today Matt Hancock attempted to wriggle out of any responsibility for his law-breaking failure to comply with transparency policy. Instead , he has shoveled the blame onto civil servants and claimed that the reason they failed to comply with the law was that they were busy saving lives. He implied that […]
The night sky is an insufficiently appreciated wonder. On a dark and moonless night on Dartmoor, far from city lights, you can see a few thousand stars with the unaided eye. Yet this is just a tiny fraction of the 100,000,000,000 stars in our galaxy. We now know that a very high proportion of these […]
Have you heard about the new health and social care ‘reforms’? The reforms which are restructuring the administration of care across the country, and which claim to overturn the worst aspects of those set up by Andrew Lansley in 2012? Are you glad to hear that these new structures, known as Integrated Care Systems, or […]
It’s certainly dramatic language. Gavin Williamson is on record as planning to “slash” (some sources even say ‘smash’) the taxpayer subsidy for subjects such as media studies. More cautious ministers might have spoken about reducing funding or withdrawing support but that’s not harsh enough for tough guy Gav. After all, this is a man who […]
Cornwall Green Party condemns an “irresponsible” proposal to promote sport fishing of bluefin tuna off Cornish coast Cornwall Green Party has condemned the proposal by Derek Thomas, MP for St Ives, to promote “sport fishing” of bluefin tuna as a way of boosting tourist spending in Cornwall. Speaking for Cornwall Green Party, marine conservationist Samuel […]
This government’s evident resistance to undergoing any process of scrutiny is now taking the country into very dangerous territory. This country allegedly operates a parliamentary democracy, with our elected representatives scrutinising, debating and voting on new laws and changes to existing legislation, holding the executive to account, including checking and approving spending and taxation. UPDATE: […]
If you thought Handforth Council was bad, let me introduce you to Honiton. In the last three years, two successive town clerks and 17 councillors have resigned. Two council employees were more or less driven out of their jobs. £75,000 was wasted on staffing issues, and employment tribunals are pending. A barrage of complaints was […]
You could hardly make it up. At the same time as government plans to appoint a ‘free speech tsar’ to stop students cancelling controversial speakers it also intends to summon heritage groups to be told by a minister what they can and cannot say about British history. It’s ludicrous but at the same time deeply […]
A leading figure in the so-called Covid Recovery Group, Baker is a disaster capitalist with an impressive string of disasters to his name. In recent months, a group of hard-right, ‘lockdown-sceptic’ Conservative MPs has been lobbying vigorously for an early exit to lockdown. And one of the loudest voices in the so-called ‘Covid Recovery Group’ […]
What are the impacts of Brexit on the local businesses in the West Country? What changes have they had to make in this last month? Are their businesses better or worse off? In earlier articles, we have talked to companies involved in transport and natural beauty products. Now, we find out about one of the […]
Simon Hoare, MP for North Dorset, is a quite a conundrum on the Conservative backbenches. Yes, he generally votes with the government, but more recently he’s been quite the rebel: most notably, voting to give parliament a vote on all new trade deals, voting to ensure our food and animal welfare standards are retained in […]
In matters scientific, European nations do far better working together Our civilisation has advanced dramatically in the last few hundred years and we have only to look to the leaps made in science and technology to understand why. Yet how many people realise that a key element of science lies in cooperation between different nations? […]
