An invitation from the Totnes Make Votes Matter team! Totnes Make Votes Matter (MVM) group are participating in the national MVM’s action day ‘Wake up, Westminster!’ on Saturday June 13. We will be meeting at 11:00 at Vire Island, by the old bridge very close to The Plains (TQ9 5DW). Our plan is to do a banner drop […]
Péter Magyar is inheriting the ruins of a democracy Orbán spent sixteen years hollowing out. Will Britain learn Hungary’s lesson the easy way or learn our own the hard way? Viktor Orbán conceded defeat on Sunday 12 April after sixteen years, after four consecutive supermajorities, after rewriting the constitution and redrawing the maps and packing […]
I was in a chemist in Grantham the other day, and got talking to the pharmacist dispensing my prescription. It is one of the blessings of my Irish stock that I am predisposed to strike up conversations with strangers – something I have always done and something I always will. Why? Because I have lost […]
The government’s Representation of the People Bill, introduced on 12 February, has been hailed as the biggest expansion of democratic participation in a generation. Cleaner political finance rules and automated voter registration are welcome reforms which will strengthen election integrity and make participation in elections easier. But we should be honest about what this Bill […]
Easily missed in the sea of political chaos that is Westminster today, there is a diamond in the rough: Britain actually has positive elections legislation on the docket in Parliament. Imagine that. I’ll tell you what I like about the Representation of the People Bill (RPB, formerly referred to as the Elections Bill) – and why, given […]
It feels as though 2025 has been another tough, ugly year and worse than the last. Empowered by Trump, Musk and a large portion of the media, racism, misogyny, environmental destruction, fascism, cruelty and greed proudly strut the world stage, trampling the vulnerable and attempting to silence opposition. It is tempting to disngage from this […]
More than two hundred people packed the Civic Hall in Totnes to hear an outstanding line-up of panellists discuss the links between democratic systems and climate [and social] justice. George Monbiot, Klina Jordan, Anthea Simmons and Jonathon Porritt, all well-known for their work in different areas of political and environmental campaigning and journalism, started the […]
As some of you may know, I am one of the co-founders of the South Devon Primary, along with Simon Oldridge and Ben Long. Born out of frustration with an electoral system that threatened to see the Conservatives’ near hundred year rule in the Totnes/South Devon constituency because the opposition vote was split, the two […]
Do we truly have the kind of democracy in our country which is fit for the challenges of the 21st Century? Does our government fairly represent the views and aspirations of voters? How can we best tackle and mitigate the effects of climate change? All these questions, and more, will be up for debate in […]
It’s a simple but effective trick, coined by former Conservative strategist Lynton Crosby, and used to devastating effect by Nigel Farage every day. Here’s how it works. When you’re losing a debate on the issues that matter – say the economy, the NHS, the cost of living – you throw something so shocking onto the […]
Rejuvenating our democracy is the ONLY sensible solution Britain’s electoral system has driven a full third of young people towards authoritarianism. Only fundamental reform can reverse this dangerous trend, and restore faith in democracy. Last week, there was much to celebrate for 18-year-olds up and down the country. A-Level results were published on Thursday, and […]
Today [July 17 2025] marks a historic moment for British democracy. The Government has published its long-awaited Strategy for Elections, announcing the most significant package of democratic reforms in a generation. There’s genuine progress to celebrate, but also a glaring omission that we cannot ignore. The good news: democracy getting a 21st century upgrade The […]
On Friday July 4, one year on from the last general election, Totnes Make Votes Matter (MVM) group were joined by the Mayor, Tim Bennett, at the Guildhall to mark the first anniversary of the most disproportionate general election in UK history. At that election the party that got a huge majority in Parliament and, […]
As I’ve said many times before on Ugly Politix, the outcome of the 2024 general election exposed the stark inadequacies of the First Past the Post system, the engine that drives our politics. Labour won 63 per cent of seats with just 33.7 per cent of the vote, Reform UK won 0.8 per cent of seats […]
George Monbiot’s article in The Guardian (27 May 2025) will resonate with many on the progressive side of politics, and especially with those who are involved in street campaigns to counter the alarming rise of the far-right. When we talk to people on the streets of south Devon’s towns, we consistently pick up a growing […]
Nigel Farage put potholes at the centre of the recent local elections – and he had a point. Potholes are a pain. We’ve all felt it. That jolt as your car hits yet another hole in the tarmac. The grimace that inevitably follows. It’s a tangible irritation, a daily reminder that things aren’t working as […]
Britain’s democracy is visibly malfunctioning. A government elected with just over a third of the vote now holds almost two-thirds of the seats in Parliament. Meanwhile, millions of people feel ignored, misrepresented, or completely shut out of decisions that affect their lives. The result? A political system that delivers neither fairness nor results. Our public […]
Numbers don’t lie – but the way we use them can. On January 27, 2025, a Channel 4 poll claimed that 52 per cent of Gen Z in the UK believe the country would be better off under a dictatorship. The media pounced. Headlines screamed about young people abandoning democracy, painting us as naive, radical, […]
Totnes Make Votes Matter (MVM) group are participating in the national MVM’s action day on Saturday 1st February between 10.00 and 13.00. We shall be outside the Mansion in Fore Street, Totnes with a huge Valentine’s card saying how much we would all love proportional representation (PR) for Westminster elections. We hope to fill […]
Starmer, baby, just slip a few new bills under the tree… The Climate and Nature Bill…second reading January 24. Please back it and give us a future – a GREEN future! Embrace the petition calling for a public consultation on freedom of speech and disinformation! If you aren’t up to speed with what disinformation is […]
Look, we know that everyone goes along with the idea that Murdoch (and the fossil fuel monsters) decide who runs this country and although this is bullsh*t, you make it real by going along with it. Stop! Shed-loads of us voted for you because you were a) not the Tories; and b) promised change. Don’t […]
This month, dogs were all the rage at your local polling station. Are teenagers next? The new prime minister promises to lower the voting age to 16; however, 51 per cent of Britons oppose such a move, with just 24 per cent in support – that’s all Britons whose opinion is relevant (those over 18 […]
The 2024 general election, in which the Labour party secured a 174 seat majority with just 34 per cent of the popular vote, has boosted interest in different electoral systems. Famously, our British First Past The Post (FPTP) system is shunned by almost all of our European neighbours (with Belarus as the one exception). But […]
Dear Sadik First of all, congratulations on a historic election result. You and your team have invested huge effort in capturing one of the more firmly entrenched Conservative seats and enabled Sir Liam Fox to spend more time with his family. Winning an election is, of course, just the beginning of the story. Sir Keir […]
How the far-right may lose the battle, but still hope to win the war As many centre-right politicians and commentators have warned us, what used to be the Conservative Party has become a vehicle for the far-right. Philip Hammond wrote: “the Conservative party has been taken over by unelected advisers, entryists and usurpers who are trying to turn […]
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 […]
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 […]
Dear Editor, As I watch the Channel 4 documentary ‘The Rise and Fall of Boris Johnson’, I despair at how such a totally unsuited and unsuitable person was given free rein to wreak such havoc on our country. I remember how, many years ago, a couple of friends said it would be good if Johnson […]
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 […]