From time to time, West Country Voices highlights the work of a voluntary group that is making a real difference for people in the south west. The article below, describing the work of Somerset Trust for Arts and Recreation (STAR), was contributed by its chair, Maggie Forkes. If you know of a local group or […]
If any organisation embodies the best of British values it is the Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI). It is funded by donations and almost entirely staffed by volunteers. It is a charity independent of government, wholly dedicated to saving lives at sea. Its volunteers are ready to risk their own life to help others, 24 […]
As reported by The Times today, a young woman from Iraqi Kurdistan, who was travelling to Britain to be with her husband, was among those who died in the Channel tragedy. She was Baran Nuri Muhamadamin, 24, from the town of Souran in the far northeast of Iraqi Kurdistan, where the territory meets the Turkish […]
Mansplaining is bad enough at the best of times, but when it’s telling women what they should do to be safe on the streets, it makes a woman’s blood boil. And when it’s done in the context of the brutal rape and murder of a young woman by a then-serving police officer, it makes the […]
Editor preface: As the BBC looks set to make money out of telling the Jimmy Savile story, the issue of historic child sex abuse is back in the spotlight. Amongst the very many lies, obfuscations and offensive statements made by Boris Johnson in the course of his political career, perhaps the most hideous and reprehensible […]
This government don’t do honesty. They don’t get irony. But, boy, do they max out on hypocrisy! UN Human Rights Council 48: UK statement on the promotion and protection of human rights in the context of peaceful protests – UK statement: The United Kingdom welcomes today’s discussion. Peaceful protests play a positive role in the […]
I first met Jonathan Cooper when I was prompted by a mutual friend, Georgina Allen, to cover the Totnes Passport story, which she felt was due a fresh look six months into Brexit. I had already heard about Jonathan – a passionate and highly-effective campaigner for LGBTQI rights, a champion of European values and a […]
Further to Valerie Huggins’s recent excellent article on universal credit (UC), I’d like to offer the following experience of a family reliant on UC: Over the last couple of years, my local church charity group has been in a position to help a ‘distressed’ family. Confidentiality prevents me from giving any details; suffice to say […]
Something I’ve been thinking a lot about this week is just how ‘good’, for want of a better word, Home Office communications are. I mean, they’re hideous, but they are also effective in their intended outcome, which isn’t really to ‘communicate’ so much as to undermine opposition. The ‘activist lawyers’ line was a masterstroke, because […]
Dear Editor-in-Chief, Johnson really just wants to destroy Great Britain. Quite why I haven’t worked out yet, but I am struggling to find out! Every single policy has been to the detriment of the British and to the advantage of the USA. Our major defence industries have been sold to Americans. Our NHS is in […]
At the beginning of August, the headline in the Guardian stated “Johnson faces rebellion over ‘intolerable’ hunger and poverty in home counties”. Steve Baker, MP for Wycombe in Buckinghamshire (and lead Brexiter) was apparently shocked by the crisis in food insecurity after a study by Sheffield University researchers revealed that his constituency is one of […]
When we say Atmos will build 62 truly affordable homes, and that Totnes is experiencing a housing emergency, it is easy to lose sight of the human stories behind that. So @SaputoInc, we’re going to tell you one of those stories. Let’s call our teller ‘Sandra’… It matters that you hear her story, Saputo Inc. […]
I awake this morning to news of yet another example of the deceit underpinning this government’s ‘levelling-up’ agenda, in one of the most neglected areas of public policy: the support for our youngest children. According to the latest research by the Sutton Trust and the Sylvia Adams Charitable Trust, England’s poorest children are being ‘locked-out’ […]
Dear Editor, Re: Let’s not mince words: the mass murder in Plymouth was an act of terrorism I worry society is becoming too quick to judge and that we are too easily convinced we are right on every issue (having tapped into the opinions of people ‘like us’ on social media). During the Brexit campaign […]
My first reaction on hearing of the horrific events in Plymouth on Thursday evening was concern for relatives living in the city. My sister-in-law and her husband walk their dog in a park not far from where it happened, and reports that the victims had included dog-walkers were far from reassuring. They were fine. My […]
Meet the latest culture wars ‘warrior’, Archbishop Stephen Cottrell, the second most powerful cleric in the land, admired by none other than that living embodiment of Christian values, Nigel Farage. Since we appear to be returning to a Henry VIII-style era, with a much-married autocrat dominating the political stage empowered by the eponymous powers of […]
In August 2018 the government set out proposals for the creation of ‘garden communities’, intended to tackle the chronic shortage of housing in the UK and raise the standard of building development. The name consciously harks back to the ‘Garden City’ vision of Ebenezer Howard but also reflects one of the stock cliches of property […]
The government gave some staff in the NHS a pay rise yesterday, and then said that the cost must come out of existing NHS budgets. It refused a pay rise to the police. It’s as if they’re saying there is a shortage of money. There isn’t. A thread’s needed to explain that….. Once upon a […]
I listened to Johnson’s levelling-up speech with hope in my heart that he would at last focus on the sector that has the potential to make the most difference to children’s life outcomes – early years care and education. In the speech, Johnson acknowledged that after ten years of Conservative government: “If you are a […]
Dear Sarah, May I call you Sarah? In these days of social media you might well be Sergei, a computer whizz, hacking out of a basement flat in St Petersburg. But I checked your profile, your number of followers and the style of your posts (and your impressive range of expletives), and I reckon you […]
The issue of trans rights is being used by the right as a wedge to divide the left. And, as the resignations of Sian Berry and Jonathan Bartley as Green Party co-leaders show, the left has fallen headlong into this trap. This is an article I really didn’t want to write, prompted by the decision […]
Jane Stevenson explains how you can help prevent vulnerable EU citizens losing their rights at the end of June by putting pressure on your MP.At midnight, on Wednesday 30 June, over 100,000 EU citizens in the UK will become illegal citizens in their own homes because they have not yet applied for settled status. Many […]
We have written three articles (see below)focused on the plight of millions unable to claim any support from the government through no fault of their own and whose pleas to Sunak have been ignored. Now, yet another person has been driven to take their lives. For this fourth piece, we defer to one of the […]
Join us on 13 July at 18:30 when we will be discussing ‘The Little Black Book of Data and Democracy’ with its author, Kyle Taylor. The event is free and whilst it would be best if you had read the short book before, it’s not a prerequisite. You’ll almost certainly want to read it afterwards! […]
To understand where Boris Johnson’s culture war is heading, the case of Spiked is instructive – and not just because his senior adviser Munira Mirza is a veteran of the former far-left & now far-right cult. Spiked grew out of a Marxist sect that called itself the Revolutionary Communist Party. It prided itself on being […]
The UK today: record foodbank use, hungry children, an obesity crisis and post-Brexit trade deals which threaten to decimate British farming and flood the market with food produced to lower standards, and the politicians chant the ‘cheap food’ mantra. The costs of cheap food are high – for humans, animals and the planet. What can […]
We are being constantly exhorted by this government to believe in Global Britain, to back British business, to rejoice that we have taken back control. The implication is that a failure to get behind Brexit, behind this government and its agenda and handling of the pandemic is a failure to be a true patriot. For […]
“As I approached one of the drowned corpses on the beach, that of a young lad, the mobile phone in his pocket began to ring; I guess it was his mother or girlfriend ringing to ask if he had arrived safely …” The words of a Spanish Red Cross worker dealing with bodies washed up […]
An elderly Italian lady, who has lived in the UK for 75 years and has British citizenship, was hoping that her niece could come over from Italy to be her ‘badante’ (carer). She said recently that her niece “can just come over with her ID card”… NO, post-Brexit she would now need an expensive passport, […]
Remember when Johnson senior accused the British public of illiteracy, saying they would not be able to spell Pinocchio? This was the evasive response to a Tweet calling Boris Johnson ‘Pinocchio’ – a liar. Now, who else can we think of who uses that sort of evasive technique?! The Italian press is still fascinated by […]