Let’s give a little credit where it’s due. The ‘Lifetime Skills Guarantee’,set out by the prime minister on 29 September, is aimed at the right target. It seeks to tackle two linked issues that threaten future prosperity: rising unemployment fuelled by the Covid crisis and the long running UK problem of low productivity. But let’s […]
After a weekend call with Ursula Von der Leyen, Johnson capitulates on his own deadline and extends the Brexit trade talks by another month.
I left London in 1973-74. I left a place and society that I saw as fragile and dysfunctional; a sort of fools’ paradise’. During my two years as a policeman in the West End, I questioned so much of what I saw around me, aided and abetted by E. F. Schumacher, G.I. Gurdjieff, Rachel Carson and […]
Wildlife in the UK is struggling with more than half of our native species in decline and one in seven facing extinction. Faced with these depressing forecasts, it is sometimes easy to forget that many of us can actually do something to help slow the decline, by making our outside space more nature-friendly. Anna Andrews […]
Priti Patel’s plan to use decommissioned ships as “processing centres” for asylum-seekers recalls one of the darkest chapters of British history. On Wednesday, the Financial Times reported that home secretary Priti Patel had asked officials to explore the construction of a “processing centre” for asylum seekers on Ascension Island, a volcanic outcrop in the South […]
When asked whether he would be producing any new episodes of his famous satirical show, ‘The Thick Of It’, Armando Iannucci replied that British politics was now so silly, it was beyond parody. One artist who has, nonetheless, successfully satirised not just British politics, but populist politics around the world over the past four years […]
The attorney general lived up to her ‘Cruella-Suella’ nickname when she attacked Shadow Justice Minister Ellie Reeve on 24 September last. Ms Reeve had asked a perfectly reasonable question, in a polite and proper way: “…there is a universal view among those who look to the attorney general to defend the rule of law that […]
West Dorset constituent Joanna Simpson isn’t at all impressed by the government’s appetite for law-breaking. She wrote to her MP, Chris Loder, last week, to beg him not to vote for the Internal Market Bill. She received the standard cut and paste reply. We liked her response to that bit of inaccurate flummery and asked […]
Much has been written about the recently published Diary of an MP’s Wife by Sasha Swire, wife of the former Conservative MP for East Devon, Hugo Swire … This memoir will be right up your alley if you’re keen to hear the inside gossip on the Camerons, Goves and other of the Swires’ friends (or […]
The US west coast is on fire, the hurricane season is off to an early start and in the UK a year of unseasonal weather has resulted in the worst wheat harvest in decades – yet more reminders that climate change is a pressing and immediate global crisis. And, as leaves fall and mists rise […]
My current edition of ‘Grass and Forage Manager’, published by British Grassland Society, shows just how far many farmers have come in recognising their responsibilities to environmental matters over the last ten to fifteen years. Articles on livestock sustainability, growing herbal leys, locking in carbon with grassland and grassland management effects on earthworm communities are […]
“As regards testing, one has to be reasonable,” droned the leader of the House of Commons, Jacob Rees-Mogg, otherwise known as the member for the seventeenth century. “Instead of this endless carping, with people saying it is difficult to get them, we should be celebrating this phenomenal success of the British nation in getting up […]
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 […]
Today Devon for Europe publishes Words on the Street, an e-book about its street stall campaign to stop Brexit. Here its authors, Simon Chater and Rosemary Schonfeld, write about the book’s genesis and contents. They hope to persuade you to download a copy and read it. Simon Chater writes: Though British by birth, I have […]
Boris Johnson may think he has managed to sweet talk abstaining and objecting MPs into backing his heinous Internal Market Bill, but some, it seems, remain resistant to his blandishments and see the issue for what it is: an attempt to legitimise/democritise (make the MPs carry the can) the breaking of international law. Sir Geoffrey […]
Here’s Neil Parish, MP for Tiverton and Honiton. Sometimes he’s a really good guy, like when he proposed an amendment to the Agri Bill in an attempt to get our EU-derived food and animal welfare standards enshrined in law. It was defeated because, yeah, the government has given assurances that there’ll be no race to […]
South West Devon’s MP, Sir Gary Streeter, along with his neighbour in Torridge and West Devon Sir Geoffrey Cox, witheld their support for the Internal Market Bill. Sir Gary articulated his reasons for so doing in clear and unequivocal terms. We have his permission to share them here. His fellow Conservative MPs would do well […]
As this economical-with-the-truth government continues to claim that testing is working fine, the facts on the ground tell a completely different story. Here is a message for our Prime Minister from a Devon mum with young kids, caught up in the testing chaos. Dear Prime Minister, This is what your handling of the pandemic is […]
Mel Stride, Conservative MP for Central Devon, was photographed wearing a wheatsheaf brooch in support of the Back British Farming Day, whilst failing to vote for Neil Parish’s (Conservative MP for Tiverton and Honiton) amendment to the Agriculture Bill. This amendment was designed to maintain our food and animal welfare standards in any future trade […]
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. […]
Nice picture of Steve Double MP for St Austell and Newquay showing his ‘support’ for food and farming businesses in the UK. Shame he didn’t vote for fellow Conservative Neil Parish’s amendment to enshrine our food and animal welfare standards in law, but hey! That’s not what we are writing about here. West Country Voices […]
When I set out on a 140-mile anti-racist ramble across rural mid-Devon, it was really driven by two words: do something. The murder of George Floyd (and the reflection of countless stories like his) made me sit up and pay some real attention to the experience of black people, not just in America, but in […]
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’ . […]
Samuel Taylor Coleridge was born in 1772 in Ottery St Mary: the churchyard and river area were his playground and the source and inspiration of much of his poetry. He returned to Ottery as a young man aged 21, and later wrote a sonnet To the River Otter, addressing it as a friend. He recalls […]
No, not a Conservative MP addressing his family retainers, but a very useful internet resource. If you live in the west country, or are planning to visit, Know Your Place is a brilliant website that provides details of all sorts of local historical information. If you are interested in history, or like walking, or simply […]
Well, here we are again, heading for the end of the transition period without any real sign that the UK will have a proper trading arrangement with the EU, and amidst increasingly dire warnings about possible shortages of food and other essentials. The Covid-19 pandemic has also served to expose the weaknesses in the “just-in-time” […]
GPS navigation has led Matt Borne to a library abandoned to moths and mice. So he’s decided to finally switch off his satnav. I was driving to the Eden Project last week for a work thing. I’d been asked to go to the service gate, an entrance I’d used many times over the years, but […]
I lie in bed and listen to the waves crashing on the shore. I pull back the covers, cross the bedroom and settle into my rocking chair in front of the window that overlooks the sea. Down in the cove, the fishermen have pulled the boats up high; a storm is brewing. I always start […]
There are many good walks in the Mendips, but popular sites on top of the plateau can get a little crowded at peak times. I prefer a walk that starts from one of the spring line villages that surround the upland – more challenging, but a more varied terrain, and a walk where the landscape […]
To the huge concern of vets and farmers, the UK government seems to be preparing to sacrifice our high animal welfare standards in order to obtain a trade deal with Donald Trump. Worryingly, this also threatens our ability to combat deadly disease in humans, writes Cornwall-based vet Danny Chambers. With the end of the transition […]