College lecturer and former Plastic-Free Falmouth champion Kirstie Edwards is gearing up to take on the role of Mayor of Falmouth next year. West Country Voices spoke to her about her career to date and her plans for the future. Kirstie Edwards’s CV isn’t short on variety. Having made Falmouth her home at the age […]
Lecturers started a three-day strike today against the use of a subsidiary company to hire staff outside national agreements that underwrite pension, pay and working conditions. This morning I was on a picket line at the entrance to Falmouth University as part of a three-strike with my fellow lecturers there. In the scheme of things, […]
It is always good to talk to people who really make a difference in society. People who put something back. People who make things happen. Fiona is one of those people. Living with multiple sclerosis (MS) herself, first diagnosed back in 2006 but impacted by the disease since 1995, she took early retirement from her […]
“I must go down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky … “ And all I ask is a litter picker made of recycled plastic, a bag made from an abandoned festival tent, good eyesight and the aim of saving the planet. Apologies to John Masefield, but I hope he would […]
But who’s consulting local residents on whether they want their areas turned into free-fire zones for developers and predatory corporations, asks Tom Scott. The government says that it is in discussions with 38 local authorities that have expressed an interest in having so-called ‘investment zones’, as announced in Kwasi Kwarteng’s special fiscal operation on 23 […]
Dear Sheryll Murray, I see that Kwasi Kwarteng, the least competent chancellor in living memory, has gone against all sensible economic advice and announced fiscal policies that almost instantly tanked the pound. Please tell me your thoughts on a tax cut for the highest earners, whilst the absolute majority of your constituents will get almost […]
The (Dis)United Kingdom has a new King and Cornwall has a new Duke. Perhaps Prince William would like to have a word with the water company that is relentlessly pouring raw sewage onto Cornish beaches, and with the MPs who have failed to stop this, suggests Tom Scott. With politics suspended for ten days and […]
A retired school teacher living in Lostwithiel has been selected to read her poem “I want my country back “at a major rally in Parliament Square on Saturday 10 September. Nicola Tipton, a retired drama teacher, has been asked to read out her poem in front of thousands at the first national Rejoin the EU Rally. […]
As with the Brexit vote many millennia ago, the peoples of Britain are slowly beginning to realise that things are gravely wrong all over our island. While this realisation is a step in the right direction, our inability to find the right target at which to aim our disquiet is shocking. Yet not all of […]
Police were called last night as climate protestors interrupted a Town Council meeting in the sleepy market town of Helston in Cornwall. 18 protestors, wearing vests which read “Divest”, were asking councillors who are trustees of the Downsland Charity to remove their considerable financial reserves from dirty oil and put the money (shortly to be […]
Wow! It’s our second birthday on 23 July. We started out as West Country Bylines and now we’ve completed nearly 7 months as West Country Voices and all thanks to the same great team of editors and proof readers, excellent writers – some new, some longstanding contributors – and a growing band of loyal readers […]
Cornish residents have a right to expect its primary democratically-elected debating chamber to be relevant to the most pressing matters of the day, argues Councillor Andrew George. I cannot apologise for my protest at the most recent full council meeting last week*. The Conservatives appear to be managing the agenda to avoid inconvenient facts and […]
Boris Johnson has vowed to stay on to fight the expected vote of no confidence (VONC) in his premiership, which could come before parliament’s summer recess. “PincherGate” has been the last straw for many Tory MPs who had given him the benefit of the doubt, but have now decided that they cannot wait until the […]
Here in South East Cornwall, we have a mirror behaviour of Johnson’s attitude and arrogance as our so-called MP Sheryll Murray goes about not doing her business. A combination of sycophantic adoration for Bozo and almost total neglect of her constituents has enraged local people of mixed political beliefs (including Tories) and prompted them to […]
Andrew George is calling on the Conservatives on Cornwall Council to reverse their decision to cut crucial funding for the Royal Cornwall Museum. Andrew is a Cornwall Councillor and has raised questions with the Council’s audit committee which meets later this week. Andrew said, “When your Party runs the country with an 80 seat majority, holds all MP seats in Cornwall and […]
With our oceans quickly filling up with plastic and fish stocks dwindling, it’s time to start talking about the massive whale in the room: ghost gear. An enormous environmental problem caused by commercial fishing and fuelled by our ever-growing appetite for seafood. Kristy Westlake talks to some of the heroes on the ocean’s frontline and […]
Cornwall for Europe posted on Facebook, citing the letters received from Sheryll Murray regarding the vote of no confidence in Johnson, including a screenshot of her boilerplate, standard response. The post provoked lifelong Conservative voter, John Holloway, to write to Murray himself. Here is his letter: Dear Mrs Murray, I have been a lifelong Conservative […]
We’re part of an ever-growing group of constituents in South East Cornwall who are very unhappy, frustrated and often angry at our ineffective MP Sheryll Murray. She is one of the 211 sycophants still supporting Johnson and they all need to be named and shamed. How on earth can anyone walk amongst their community knowing […]
All but one of Cornwall’s Conservative MPs voted on 6 June to back a law-breaking prime minister and thereby brought themselves and their party into even greater disrepute. Their constituents’ reactions ranged from derision to weary despair, as Tom Scott describes. First to tweet in support of Britain’s worst prime minister in modern history after […]
Old ideas of what it means to be ‘Cornish’ are dead, and cannot be revived. Moving forward, Cornish identity must be redefined to suit the modern age, unless enough people want to start going back down mines for work, and speaking only in Cornish. To talk of the good old days is to languish in […]
Dear Sheryll Boris Johnson has again proven his unsuitability for office. Having first lied about breaking the law during Covid lockdowns, followed by breaking the ministerial code when actively lying about it in parliament, he has now changed the ministerial code so that lying and lack of morality is no longer a resignation offence. No […]
Industry backs it, business leaders are calling for it, charities are begging for it, but they still won’t do it. Why? In whose pocket do they live?Nothing more to say.
No one cares about Cornwall. Not even half of Cornwall cares about Cornwall. The Duchy doesn’t care about Cornwall. Westminster doesn’t care about Cornwall. The sooner we realise this the better. All politicians care about is power and doing the bare minimum they can, to cling onto popular support, and if we dare to complain, […]
If you go down to the beach today, along with the usual sand and sea shells, you might find a tide of plastic pollution waiting to greet you. Considering the world’s addiction to throw-away plastic, that should come as no surprise. The material is cheap, long-lasting and versatile, and today plastic waste is found all […]
New data from The Food Foundation shows 7.3 million adults went without food in April. Of these, 2.4 million had not eaten for a whole day at least once in the past month. Yet there is no shortage of food in the UK, or of money. This is not a ‘cost of living crisis’ but […]
Upcycle Kernow, a Portreath-based community interest company, has raised more than £2,000 by collecting “unrecyclable” waste from the community to be recycled. The waste collected includes cheese packaging, bread bags, personal care and beauty products and packaging, oral care products, home cleaning products and packaging, biscuit and snack wrappers and much more. This waste is not included […]
Fire Authority stealth cuts put lives and property at risk, argues Tony Morris. Just a couple of years after Ashburton residents successfully fought to save their fire station, the Conservative controlled fire & rescue authority has stabbed them in the back. In a secret move, Ashburton’s properly equipped fire engine has been removed and replaced […]
Members of Cornwall Green Party went for a walk on Sunday around a greenfield site on the outskirts of Truro that is threatened by destructive housing development. The 18-strong group set out from County Hall, walking along a stretch of the old railway line that forms part of the Newham Trail before branching out across […]
Well, if you can fathom out what’s really going on here, you’re doing better than us or Sharon who wrote to her MP George Eustice in the first place. See what you make of this. The question: Dear Mr Eustice, I feel compelled to ask you why your party in government has broken its promise […]
Dear Sheryll The government has now announced its regional funding strategy. Now forgive me as I did not take maths past GCSE so I may be wrong, but £132 million from our government is slightly less than the £300 million that Cornwall would have received from the European Union over the same three year period. […]