If the events of the past few days have shown us anything, it is that, in the end, truth really must and will prevail. Big whoppers, small fibs – doesn’t really matter. A lie is a lie is a lie and spinning it as a half truth won’t wash. Let’s just consider the circled text […]
Despite the best efforts of the Lords, despite the emails and tractor protests and the efforts of the campaign to Save British Farming, only one of our region’s Conservative MPs had the guts to stand up for farmers and try to guarantee them a level playing field in any trade deals. ONE. Simon Hoare, MP […]
We ran this article last week on Torridge Council’s decision to express its anger at the government’s decision to vote against protecting food and animal welfare standards in the Agriculture Bill. One of the passionate supporters of the motion proposed by sheep farmer and councillor, Cheryl Cottle-Hunkin, was the local Rural Dean and team vicar, […]
It takes a village to raise a child is an African proverb which is very relevant for us in these isolationist times, when raising a family is really hard for many in the face of a pandemic and after years of punishing austerity. With so many people, businesses and projects rallying to help provide meals […]
“The National Trust has been contacted by the charity regulator over claims that it has strayed from its ‘clear, simple purpose’ to preserve historic buildings and treasures. Regulators approached the charity this month after receiving complaints from the public about its review into links between its estate and slavery during the British empire.” Do people […]
Amongst numerous cuts to NHS services over the last 10 years have been those to hospital beds – 17,000 hospital beds have gone since 2010, with beds in community hospitals drastically reduced in 2017. Could this have contributed to the huge number of Covid-19 deaths in care homes earlier this year? We now know that […]
The Agriculture Bill comes back to the House of Commons on 4 November amidst growing concern from rural communities up and down the UK over the government and Conservative MPs’ stubborn refusal to enshrine food and animal welfare standards in law. Peers have voted again to beef up protection for farmers and consumers. Farmers are […]
Earlier this month, the first round of the government’s Culture Recovery Fund was announced by Arts Council England, with a welcome £257m allocated to 1,385 theatres, museums, orchestras, dance companies, music venues and other arts organisations impacted by Covid-19. Culture Secretary Oliver Dowden announced: “This funding is a vital boost for the theatres, music venues, […]
Anthony Mangnall M.P. House of Commons London SW1A 0AA 26 October 2020 Dear Mr Mangnall I’m writing this open letter to you in reply to yours of 27 July 2020, which reprimands me for calling Brexit out as a “resurgence of the disease of fascism”. Be in no doubt: that’s exactly what Brexit is. […]
Environmental campaigner Tony Whitehead considers the extent to which Dartmoor’s nature is protected, and the shocking condition of its protected sites. On 28 September Boris Johnson committed to protecting 30 per cent of the UK’s land by 2030. A fine ambition, of course, and to be welcomed. In the government statement that accompanied the announcement […]
On 23 October, we published an article on North Devon MP Selaine Saxby’s insensitive but revealing comment on the free school meals issue. You can read the article here. Ms Saxby has attempted to defray the criticism of her (speedily deleted) Facebook post elicited thus: Now, I don’t know about you, but I’m never very […]
No-one should have to tolerate abuse in the workplace and bullying is wholly unacceptable. An MP is a public servant with a duty of care to his or her constituents. Having taken on a public role, MPs must expect to attract opprobrium if they act in ways which their constituents do not like. They should […]
Editor: In a week when a former minister, Nicky Morgan, claims that name-calling from the opposition somehow justified Conservative MPs voting to deny poor children access to free meals, it’s clearer than ever that we must have electoral reform and put an end to playground politics. Caroline Voaden’s experience as an MEP allows her to […]
As we wait for what feels like the final slow-motion spin of the car as it hurtles inexorably towards the cliff edge, wondering if our heroes are going to escape from this seemingly impossible situation … again … no, stop there. Enough with the Hollywood imagery, the tired old metaphors. They just aren’t funny anymore. […]
Whatever Rishi Sunak did or didn’t say or did or didn’t mean in his interview with ITV, the debate over the value of the arts and of artists in our society and economy has been front and centre recently. And rightly so. The UK’s creative industries are estimated to contribute around £13 million to the […]
Last night, your government and mine voted against – yes, against – enshrining the UK’s food and farming standards in law. Instead, we are asked to trust in their manifesto promise to maintain said standards and not to compromise them in any trade deals they might finally (and without the say-so of parliament) strike with […]
Why should additional needs limit your craving for adventure? Journalist Dawn Sanders, who has a visual impairment, argues impaired sight should not get in the way of free- spiritedness. Two years ago I met a kindred spirit where I would never have expected to: at the Royal National College for the Blind. Before going to the […]
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 […]
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 […]
Few towns in the South West will receive funding from the government’s Towns Fund – and now we know why. In September 2019, local government secretary Robert Jenrick published a list of 101 places that would receive help to develop bids for funding from the government’s £3.6 billion Towns Fund. There was suspicion at the […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
In a rare piece of good news for the south-west’s environment, the government recently confirmed that beavers would be allowed to stay on the River Otter in Devon. Beavers were hunted to extinction in Britain about 400 years ago. Hunters sought their pelts and their anal glands, which produce castoreum – a unique natural product […]