East Devon independent parliamentary candidate Claire Wright stood for election in 2015, 2017 and 2019, coming second each time. Now the resignation of Tory MP Neil Parish has brought her into the spotlight as a possible candidate for the Tiverton and Honiton by-election. Claire wrote to WestCountry Voices about her reaction to the resignation, and […]
Yesterday, in a speech of breathtaking hypocrisy, the prime minister stated an intention to “sanction Russian individuals and companies of strategic importance to the Russian state [in the event of a Russian invasion of Ukraine]; and we will make it impossible for them to raise finance on the London capital markets; and we will open […]
Dear West Country Voices, Boris Johnson has been a good thing for this country, and no, don’t worry, I haven’t gone totally insane after years of gaslighting and government lies, so please hear me out. He has been so awful that he has finally and fully shown that the current parliamentary system based on “gentleman’s […]
This is a clear and powerful summary of the ‘levelling down’ of democracy in the proposed Elections Bill from Make Votes Matter, reproduced with their kind permission: What is the Elections Bill and what does it mean for our country? The Elections Bill was introduced to Parliament by the government back in July 2021, and […]
This is a record of our well-attended Democracy in Danger event on Thursday 20 January. Unfortunately the tape was not running for the introductions and so I paraphrase in this summary. Molly Scott Cato, (Greens) talked about her work to research and then to raise awareness of the rise of fascism in the UK. She […]
Dear West Country Voices, The Conservative party has clearly been in power for too long and has too much power based on significantly less than half of the votes cast in the last general election (an 80 seat majority based on securing a mere 43.6 per cent of the ballots cast in 2019). The recent […]
It seems that democracy is under assault on multiple fronts from voter suppression measures and attempts to curtail tactical voting in the Elections Bill to the attack on our right to peaceful protest in the Police, Crimes, Courts and Sentencing Bill. Couple this with a government elected on lies and misrepresentation and hostile to any […]
Former civil servant Richard Haviland sets out a chilling and all-too-possible vision of a bleak future for the UK with a hollowed-out faux democracy. Ed With all the red lights flashing at the state of the UK’s democracy, I’ve seen it said we shouldn’t assume the next general election will even happen. The issue, though, […]
Ask people what they understand by ‘democracy’ and I am guessing that most will say that it means voting or elections. And it does. In part. But there’s a whole lot more bundled up in this word that we bandy about so freely, and that we all assumed described the political system under which we […]
Labour is tearing itself apart (as usual), leaving the Conservatives to get on with misgoverning us without the punishment due to them (as usual). It’s dispiriting for anyone who cares for this country. As usual. Why does Labour do this? Why has it no settled purpose? Why does it throw hostage after hostage to the […]
The role of leader of the opposition can be a curse, as well as an opportunity, and just now – as Johnson completes his second drive-by reshuffle – must be the perfect moment for Sir Keir Starmer to pause and take stock. The worst government in living memory is beset by crisis after crisis, and […]
Dear Mr Parish I am a ‘floating voter’ in your constituency and deeply concerned at the provisions of the Elections Bill, which has its second reading today, 7 September. This bill is the biggest threat to democracy the UK has ever faced and, because the Conservatives have such a large majority, it has every chance […]
Most mornings, over tea and toast, I read the online newsletter by Heather Cox-Richardson. She’s a history professor at Boston College and has a huge global following. I find her daily accounts of events in the US – current and historical – make fascinating reading and fill in a lot of gaps in my knowledge. […]
For the purpose of this article, let us accept that the Conservatives are in power and were in power when some of the events referred to occurred. Readers may say “But what if it had been Corbyn or Starmer?”. Please set that alternative scenario to one side. I am looking at what was genuinely a […]
Keeping track of this lot eroding democracy and accountability This is quite some list. An aide-memoire to the horrors already well on their way to implementation. Plans to constrain the Electoral Commission: Voter suppression via Voter ID Gerrymandering the borders to get TEN extra Tory seats Police Bill to ban peaceful protest Changing Mayor voting […]
Local residents in Totnes will join hundreds of people across the UK on Saturday 31st July to make noise for Proportional Representation (PR). PR is about the seats in Parliament being proportionate to the number of votes. From singing to banging drums or pots and pans, people will be out in force to break the […]
The debate about ‘levelling up’ prompts this summary of the Johnson government. The Johnson government excels at ‘sloganeering populism’: ‘Get Brexit Done’, ‘Global Britain’, ‘Freedom Day’… and now ‘Levelling up’. The rhetoric projects energy and is meant to show a governmentt devoted to ‘the people’s priorities’. Behind the rhetoric, one might hope for some substance, […]
The Labour Party has launched a national consultation on policy which runs until 19 July. As one of those consulted, Eric Gates responds by switching the focus to the important issues the document omits rather than what it covers. Dear Sir Keir, You asked for my thoughts on a number of topics in the recent […]
In Amersham and Chesham, many who traditionally voted Conservative abandoned the party which has abandoned them and whose leadership, priorities and methods they view with increasing distaste. Instead, they voted for the party most likely to remove the Conservatives from a seat they had held since the constituency’s creation in 1974. In this instance, it […]
The UK elections of 6 May 2021 revealed a fragmented political landscape. Although the results showed, as do most national polls, that the combined support for the opposition parties continues to exceed the Conservatives’, they showed no sign that Labour alone would be likely to oust Boris Johnson’s increasingly authoritarian and nationalist regime in the […]
Dear Editor, On 6 May, much of the country went to the ballot box to select county council representatives. “On the doorsteps people told me that ‘politicians don’t listen to us anyway’ ”. So said Ruth Rollin, Liberal Democrat candidate for Brockenhurst. She continues, “I’d like to hope that we would all welcome a voting […]
The government’s plan to introduce compulsory photo ID for voters has gone down like the proverbial cup of cold sick. Allegedly, the measure is being proposed to eradicate voter fraud of which there have been a vanishingly small number of instances. In fact, as Newsnight’s Emily Maitlis pointed out, UK data shows 0.00001 percent of […]
This is a press release from the Make Votes Matter team. Multi million pound police and mayoral budgets could be controlled by officials that most people simply didn’t vote for under new voting Bill The British public is being urged to tell the Government not to impose First Past the Post for mayoral and police […]
The local elections in Cornwall have seen the Conservatives take control of the council with the votes of fewer than 15% of registered voters. In the 18th and early 19th century, Cornwall was notorious for having more so-called ‘rotten boroughs’ than anywhere else in England. The historian Lewis Namier described Cornish politics in the 1760s: […]
Our MP’s empty chair was part of the focus of an online, public meeting on the evening of Thursday 11 March, held by Totnes Make Votes Matter (MVM), to discuss voting reform for parliamentary elections to Westminster. “Make Votes Matter”, a national cross-party campaign group, organised a mass lobby of MPs all over the country, to propose a change of the voting system […]
For millions of voters, the most basic act of democratic citizenship – casting a vote – is about to get harder. Under legislation being trailed in the media, it will no longer be possible simply to walk into a polling station, give your name and address, and cast a vote. Instead, voters will have to produce […]
Laurie Taylor of Make Votes Matter in Totnes : Our local Make Votes Matter (MVM) group has been working hard to develop something in the place of the ‘lobby’ about Electoral Reform which Totnes MP Anthony Mangnall (AM) has refused to have with us. We have decided on a different zoom event where we will […]
Several writers, including West Country Voices’s Tom Scott and Sadie Parker, have drawn attention to the disturbing parallels between the anti-democratic activities of Trump in the USA and Johnson here. Many, however, are reluctant to accept that Johnson is in effect Britain’s Trump, despite the fact that this dubious accolade was bestowed by none other […]
Judging by the liveliness of social media platforms well into the night, as 6 January rolled into 7 January on the European side of the Atlantic, half the UK was glued to CNN – watching agog as insurrectionists invaded government offices in Washington D.C. They stormed the Capitol building, the heart of American democracy, equipped […]
I had begun an article on the confirmation of more hopeful signs for democracy in the USA coming from the run-off elections in Georgia…and not because Democrats won, but because the long hard effort to secure voter engagement right across the electorate had paid off. I will return to the subject, because there are important […]