Then and now Bang, crash, rattle as the bus lumbers along a road full of potholes, badly patched sections and ‘oozing’ tarmac distorted by the weight of passing heavy vehicles… A familiar story? But that was in 1969, when I was a student in Spain: at the time, a country almost ‘third world’ in terms […]
It has recently been revealed that when the government told us that we the taxpayers had been made to foot the £15,000 bill for Culture Secretary Michelle Donelan’s libel case, they lied. The cost of the investigation plus the legal fees plus the settlement amount minus the VAT rebate on the legal fees, was more […]
Four years on from Brexit, I’m taking a look at how various industries have been affected by the realities of our decision to leave the EU. The first in the series looked at ‘How fishing was gutted by Brexit’, and this time I’m going to look at how British farming has fared. Before I begin, […]
Meet Mel J Stride, the ‘Right Honourable’ MP with a controversial association with the loan charge scandal. A member of the Conservative Party, he has been the Member of Parliament for Central Devon since 2010. What is the Loan Charge? Sixty-seven thousand people are being pursued by HMRC (HM Revenue and Customs: the tax office) under a piece of legislation – the Loan Charge […]
With so many leadership changes and policy U-turns, it is hard to keep track of the promises on which the Conservatives were elected to government in 2019. I have had a detailed look back at their 2019 manifesto; it’s hard for voters to have a clear line of accountability, with weekly “rebrands”, “resets”, and “relaunches”. […]
The statistics keep coming. 14 years of Tory rule leaves us with eight per cent of pensioners failing to eat regularly because of heating costs and other bills. Nine kids in any state school class of 30 are living in poverty (defined as family income below 60 percent of the national average). The Government has allocated […]
People’s primary organisers side-step party HQs’ attempt to block their new grassroots movement to unite the progressive vote. South Devon Primary is a community initiative to unite the progressive vote around a single opposition candidate at the general election, healing the division which time after time hands victory to the Conservatives. The primary took place […]
A recent episode of the hospital drama Casualty misrepresented the very serious risks that Covid still poses. Jane Stevenson wrote to the BBC to explain just how wrong they’d got it. On Saturday 9 March, an episode of Casualty was broadcast, “Trauma”, which created a lot of upset. After reading a robust Twitter/X post by […]
No-one outside of a diminishing band of party bureaucrats believes our political and democratic system is working. Of course, the charade continues; of PMQ’s, of who’s up and who’s down, of polls and predictions. But this, in the phrase of Colin Crouch, is a post-democracy, a democracy in name only in which the game is played […]
When I look back over the last eight years, one image dominates: September 2019, and Paula Sherriff ‘s pleas to Johnson to tone down his language – language being quoted back to her colleagues in death threats – is dismissed as ‘humbug’ It wasn’t the day the ugliness started – heaven knows there’d been enough […]
One could almost sense an epic eye roll and audible sigh rippling across the land, when news broke that the government was pulling a vote on banning MPs accused of violent and sexual offences from the parliamentary estate, due to objections by Sir Christopher Chope (Christchurch) and Philip Davies (Shipley). What could be more sensible […]
Shamima Begum is a London-born girl, who some years ago, aged 15, ran away from her parents to join ISIS. She wanted to be a mother to the children of martyrs. On 23 February 2024, the British court decided that stripping her of British citizenship is a rightful decision. I believe this is a day […]
Make Love, not War! Since time immemorial there have been marriages and relationships between people of different nations. My own knowledge of history is pretty limited, but I suppose one could cite Anthony with Cleopatra, Henry VIII with Catherine of Aragon, Mary with Philip II of Spain, Victoria with Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha… and, […]
Dear Editor, I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but the NHS is falling apart. Doctors are striking, but the government say their salary demands are unaffordable. I don’t what the roads are like where you live, but round here there are huge potholes that risk taking your wheel off. But the county council have no […]
In many elections, the key issues are living standards and the state of the economy. In the UK today, voters are (rightly) concerned that their living standards are lower today than they were in 2010 and that public services (especially the NHS) are in crisis. These valid concerns can however obscure an even more fundamental […]
Brace, brace for the first ‘The Week In Tory’ of 2024. Also, please read the information at the end, which my publisher insists I add, and which helps to pay for my dog to eat things (other than rotting pigeons he finds on the field). Ta. 1. Boris Johnson, once voted “worst PM ever”, heroically volunteered […]
In December, I wrote about the need for a change to the law on the insolvency of water companies. I suggested a change that would wipe out shareholders, give loan creditors a haircut and leave essential suppliers with their payments due intact because they were essential to the ongoing supply of water in the UK. Renationalisation […]
Global average temperatures in 2023 exceeded 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels, conditions never before experienced by human civilisation. Though crossing this iconic milestone for one year doesn’t mean that average warming has yet reached that point, it was only in 2018 that UN climate experts, the IPCC, predicted that we wouldn’t reach 1.5°C until around 2040. […]
Enough is enough. Time to stop the destruction of the fabric of our society. Brexit has been the unmitigated failure it was always destined to be. Ideologues, fantasists and proto-fascists are taking the country in a disastrous direction. Corruption is rampant. Sickness and poverty are rife. Victorian diseases of poverty and malnutrition are back – […]
From 31 January 2024, certain goods coming from the EU to Great Britain – particularly fresh foods – will be subject to full Brexit border controls and checks for the first time, meaning extra paperwork, delays, and costs. The UK government had previously delayed the new Brexit controls five times, concerned about the impact on […]
Look. I absolutely get copyright. As a children’s author with a sixth title out in July, I want my copyright protected. PDF versions of my books and pirated audio versions crop up from time to time and my publisher, part of Penguin/Random House, quickly gets them taken down. These breaches are not innocent. People are […]
Starting on 31 January 2024, the UK government is imposing full Brexit border controls on imports from the EU, having delayed them on five previous occasions. This is three years after the UK left the EU’s Single Market, when the EU had no qualms in immediately imposing full border controls on goods from the UK […]
Update: Riverford’s petition will be debated in parliament Jan 22 with potentially important ramifications for farmers across the UK. We’ll be listening in. Devon-based Riverford (of veg box fame) have launched a new #GetFairAboutFarming campaign, calling for British supermarkets to sign up to the principles of Riverford’s Fair to Farmers charter: Pay what you agreed […]
Many of our readers will, by now, be familiar with the concept of the political primary: a process designed to resolve the tragedy of seats with an overall progressive majority yet predicted to return a Conservative MP (on a minority vote) because the progressive vote is split. The idea being pioneered in South Devon (formerly […]
Yes, YOU can change the world. Or more pertinently, WE can change the world. People of all ages, from all ages, have been changing the world since humans arrived on it. There’s no doubt that the standard of living of the average human has considerably changed and improved in the past 100 years, 1000 years, […]
Dear Editor, I was very surprised to hear that the authors of ‘Mr Bates vs the Post Office’ were amazed at the public reaction to their excellent docu-drama, All around the country people were, like me, shouting at the television with complete indignation and disgust at the awful treatment of innocent folk by an uncaring […]
Health warning: much or all of this will make your blood boil. Use your vote to secure health benefits. The only way we can get our blood pressure down is to get these liars, crooks, charlatans and incompetents out of office asap! What follows is a list of just a few of the dreadful things […]
Each new year brings hopes and fears – hope for good changes, fear that bad ones might arise. Mostly, we hope things will improve for family and friends who are struggling but worry about how events outside their control will prevent progress. All our personal futures are bound up with the wider world, so here […]
Welcome back, readers, to our scorching series where we’ve previously dissected the 2010, 2015, and 2017 Tory manifestos. Today, we turn our critical eye to the 2019 Tory manifesto, continuing our journey through a decade of Conservative rule marred by unmet promises and political chaos. Our previous analyses have laid bare the stark reality of a party struggling with […]
Welcome, readers, to the third instalment in our biting series dissecting over a decade of Tory rule. Today, we tackle the tumultuous 2017 Tory manifesto – an era that epitomizes the Conservatives’ descent into political chaos and policy disarray. After our critical examinations of the 2010 and 2015 manifestos, we’re now delving into a period that escalated the Conservative […]