“This Bill threatens what we do peacefully because we believe in something.” Seasoned activists, people from a wide range of pressure groups, and individuals from all walks of life came together in Exeter on 15 January to show their resistance to the Bill with Priti Patel’s fingerprints all over it: the Police, Crime, Sentencing and […]
We know that Boris Johnson’s days in Number 10 are numbered now. We can’t be sure how many there still are. That his tenure will end well before the time of the next election is, however, seemingly certain. But my question is, so what? What then for the Tories, and us. The Conservative Party is […]
Dear Mr Parish, As long as laws are made in Parliament, then British people must have a legal right to protest them in Parliament Square. Democracy is not an ‘inconvenience’. Public opposition and dissent are among the hard-won rights that make our democratic system function. Seeking to limit noise levels so people cannot be heard, […]
This is a press release from campaign organisation, Grassroots for Europe. We do not usually publish these verbatim, but this is a well-worded and powerful summary of the situation we face, a situation that seems unbelievable in the UK, a situation which is a key characteristic of a repressive regime. We will be covering the […]
Dear Sheryll Yet another lockdown party at Downing Street has been exposed. I have written to you several times in the past and I have never really got any satisfactory kind of answer as to what your feelings are about the rule-breaking parties that took place at Number 10 last year whilst millions of us […]
Some might feel that Brexit is trying to take us back to the rather quaint England portrayed in Dad’s Army, a world in which the country had its back against the wall fending off an evil foe, when patriotic, nationalist spirit was generated by its leaders and xenophobia was fostered to fuel the determination to […]
The ‘not guilty’ verdict in the trial of the Colston-4 has been a gift to those within the Conservative party who favour culture war over doing something practical to improve our lives. Better by far to have us angry, divided and at each other’s throats on social media rather than noticing their policy failings, authoritarian […]
Jury trials are the latest in a long list of things which have displeased the government. Its reaction looks like it is following a familiar – grim – pattern. Phil Syrpis explains. Every time ‘events’ prompt an institution, beyond the direct control of the government, to take a course of action which displeases the government, […]
No one of sound mind can, I think, work out the reasoning of Lord Geidt when deciding to very largely exonerate Boris Johnson of all charges relating to the funding of the refurbishment of the Downing Street flat in letters published yesterday. By refusing to reopen his original inquiry and by permitting himself to only […]
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 […]
Words matter. Every second around 6,000 tweets are sent worldwide, equating to 500m a day – that’s 200bn tweets of 280 characters every year – you can watch it happening in real time at Internet Live Stats. It’s a lorra words. And 2021 was full of them. 2021 was the year of what was said […]
This is the tale of one man’s attempts to hold a politician to account for his public utterances – utterances which some would say represent an over-sized helping of double standards. If this interests you and you are one of those who, like me, are inclined to exclaim, “You effing liar” whenever a current Tory […]
Has there ever been a British government this rotten, this out of touch with the public and this much of a danger to British democracy, public well-being and our international reputation? Judge for yourself as we take you on a whirlwind tour of the highs and lows of 2021, a year many of us might […]
Ah, the review of the year! An opportunity to look back and see how far we have come, only in the UK’s case there is more than a whiff of Groundhog Day and zero evidence of any great moment of enlightened self-awareness or contrition from this government. Take our first highlight from January from Cornwall […]
While Putin engages in sabre rattling on the Ukrainian border, his acolytes in former Yugoslavia are also on the move. In this short but disturbing piece, Eric Gates alerts us to what is going on. Although Bosnia (officially Bosnia and Herzogovina or BiH) has been out of the headlines in recent years, and the Dayton […]
Various reasons are given for the Liberal Democrats’ stunning by-election win in Leave-voting North Shropshire on 16 December. In Helen Morgan, they had a strong, local candidate who fought a vibrant, positive campaign and was able to inspire tactical voting by members of other progressive parties, notably Labour. The Conservative candidate, impressive on paper, was […]
With the author’s grateful acknowledgements to ‘Louise’ and ‘Don’ (not their real names) for their personal insights into the North Shropshire by-election. “It was as if they had no real concept of democracy in action.” So says Louise, talking about the North Shropshire by-election in which the LibDems (Liberal Democrats) won such a stunning victory. […]
What was that he said about Brexit? “I’m very pleased and proud to have led a great UK team to secure today’s excellent deal with the EU. Both sides worked tirelessly day after day in challenging conditions to get the biggest & broadest trade deal in the world, in record time.” Or something like that. […]
This 2019 article is from Tom Scott and Molly Scott Cato’s Cabinet of Horrors blog. It remains extremely pertinent, especially so given Truss’s move to ‘negotiate’ Brexit following Frost’s resignation. That’s the same Brexit Johnson and Frost claim to have got done… It would be easy to dismiss Liz Truss as an intellectual lightweight, and […]
WARNING: This article contains strong language. Sunak slinks back through Heathrow, hoody and posture-political mask neatly in place. Ruffled and snappy. ‘Yes I’m looking at all this over the weekend’ – he told one reporter. Like a vexed dad, having to move his car cos it’s parked a bit on next door’s drive. Though I […]
The Royal Shambolica Express has finally hit the buffers, thanks to those gorgeous voters up in North Shropshire, and there remains only the traditional offer of the ‘last rights’ to the King of Bluster who is, even now, eyeing all that gold wallpaper and packing his bags. £890 a roll for a couple of months’ […]
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, […]
Ahead of International Migrants Day (18 December), the lives of vast numbers of EU nationals in the UK are still in turmoil thanks to the actions, and inaction, of the Johnson/Vote Leave government. Richard Haviland explains their predicament. The Home Office likes to trumpet the success of its EU settlement scheme and say that over […]
How many of us have experienced, or can begin to really comprehend, what it is to be without a home? How many of us have known the unsettling insecurity of living in rented accommodation at the whim of a landlord who might at any moment, once the fixed term contract is up, issue a Section […]
The prime minister may soon have cause to reflect on the lessons of the greatest gangster movie ever made. Tom Scott explains the connection. Boris Johnson’s sister, Rachel Johnson, once described her brother as “quite Sicilian” in his attitude towards loyalty. She was no doubt thinking of the Sicilian Mafia, and not just because one […]
The next unelected Tory prime minister will be chosen by members, and will be whoever most closely matches their paranoia on that particular day. It might be immigrants. Might be taxes. Maybe Europe. The fate of our statues. Uppity footballers. Or gay Santas in Scandinavian Christmas ads. Maybe they’ll vote to lower benefits for poor […]
A media tarts special double bill! “It’s media, darling!” would be a good phrase to describe Mangnall’s latest servings of pig swill to constituents. And what a marvellous couple of weeks it has been: Tory lies have flowed like sewage down the Dart, and Mangnall has worked tirelessly, attempting to transform his profile from an […]
Dear West Country Voices, When news about ‘the party’ first came to light, Johnson and his crew tried to spin it as a ‘Westminster bubble’ story. To everyone else, it looked as if they were just thumbing their noses at the suffering of ordinary people who had followed the rules and suffered greatly as a […]
We are putting this out again in the light of recent developments which appear to show Johnson, once again, lying. This story matters on so many levels. It should be the final curtain for Johnson, frankly. Ed Forget the wallpaper. Forget John Lewis. Forget the curtains and the chintzy sofas. This isn’t a story about […]
Most people seem to think that Dido Harding’s test and trace programme (NHST&T but nothing to do with the NHS) is a disaster. I won’t go into the reasons why; you can read some of it in the House of Commons committee report. Instead, let’s just look at the costs. The government allocated a budget […]