Category: Politics

£50 note burning under Union flag

“The further a society drifts from the truth, the more it will hate those that speak it.”― George Orwell There have been rumours circulating for some time now that Paul Dacre, former editor of the Daily Mail and still editor-in-chief of the Daily Mail Group, will be confirmed as the new chair of Ofcom. He is […]

“EU vaccine war explodes,” screamed the Daily Mail in its first edition. Then hours later its headline had changed to “EU Jabs Climbdown” as it accused the EU of performing a ‘screeching U-turn’. Wait. What? There had been a war and it was all over eight hours later? What on earth was going on? It […]

On 8 January, MP for Somerton and Frome David Warburton gave an interview to the Somerset County Gazette containing a great deal of misinformation. Short of a small link to a fact-checking website in the middle of the article, his views were printed uncontested. Is it right for an MP to be given a platform […]

Back in 2000, Totnes was absorbed with the romantic phenomenon of a ‘world-beating’ local product: the catamaran Team Philips, the largest yacht ever built, designed to break the record time for sailing around the world. Like many Totnes families, we helped to sponsor it, and our names were among thousands painted on the hull. As […]

Warning: contains strong and, in the editor’s opinion, entirely justifable language. I am now at the end of January 2021 and still no new stock. I can see clearly what #Brexit really means for my industry & how I will have to fundamentally change my business model if I am to be trading in 12 […]

Scrutiny – not a word that this government either likes or, being charitable, understands. Scrutiny. It’s essential for a healthy society. It is essential if citizens are to have any trust in their public servants and institutions. Scrutiny, trust and truth have all been damaged in the course of the past few years and their […]

It was apparently a last-minute decision – taken unilaterally by Boris Johnson’s government and announced on Christmas Eve. The UK is pulling out of the EU’s Erasmus programme. This is the scheme, launched in 1987, which has enabled over three million European students to spend up to a year studying or working in another EU […]

It has been unedifying, to say the least, to see people piling on to Brexit reality stories to shout “told you so!” to the victims of the Brexit scam. This story, as it happens , is about a business owner who saw through the lies from the start. A pragmatist, he resigned himself to the […]

Changes to the planning system could allow unscrupulous developers to do  serious damage to historic town centres – have your say before it’s too late! The government is currently consulting on several proposed changes to the planning regulations. Here in Penryn, Cornwall, these changes threaten our town centre, industrial areas and heritage. There are three […]

The UK is sleepwalking towards a truly dangerous constitutional crisis, in which we no longer agree on how we make democratic decisions or on what constitutes a valid referendum. Its roots lie in the way that we use referendums – and time is running short to fix this. The referendum is now the most powerful […]

Priti Patel’s Police, Crime Courts and Sentencing bill seeks to limit a number of our freedoms. Does it mark the beginning of the end of right to roam? Tom Scott writes.

No doubt you’ve seen the news that, unlike some of the other car manufacturers, Nissan has decided to stay in the UK. Phew! There must have been a collective sigh of relief in Sunderland that was so loud, it made the wings of the Angel of the North flap 13 miles away in Gateshead. Surely […]

Daniel has an update on his thread explaining why Brexit is a total fiasco: “We are now 23 days into 2021, here is my second thread on how #brexit reality is holding my business back currently, as I watch the wine supply chain collapse before my very eyes. Following on from my thread last week […]

Until 1 January the full impact of Brexit on the UK its people and businesses was an unknown quantity. You could say it was a promise, a hope… even a mirage. Brexit could be anything you wanted because the details were not known. Indeed, even the broad outlines remained unclear as the government continued to […]

As democracy has been trampled under a tsunami of lies, scams and evasion of scrutiny this month, perhaps the Conservative and Unionist Party needs a new name? I’ll go first: the Anti-Democracy and not-so-Unionist Party. Here’s why… Boris Johnson can’t stop lying. To dismiss that with an exclamation of, “oh, but all politicians lie,” is […]

A progressive motion on Climate Change and Fossil Fuel Projects will go to February’s full council meeting at Devon County Council (DCC), after Cabinet recommended it should consider a modified  version. If passed, the motion would see DCC to call on the Government to make two significant changes to their funding of fossil fuel projects: […]

Aww! Bless June Mummery for spotting that leaving the EU meant no more attendance of the meetings, but really! Poor LibDem Caroline Voaden, who like the other non Brexit-cultist MEPs, including Conservative Dr Charles Tannock, Labour’s Clare Moody and the Green’s Molly Scott Cato, tried frantically to explain what Brexit would do to fishing. We […]

“Those who oppose tyrannical ‘wokeness’ have right on their side, and with sufficient courage and resolve, patriots will prevent the imposition of their poisonous puritanism on us all”. So wrote Sir John Hayes in “Spalding Today” in his neo-Trumpist call to arms. HAYES IN THE HOUSE: Why we must all fight back against poisonous wokism […]

You might want to watch this. This is the contempt in which this government holds you. The very same contempt it shows the hauliers, the NHS, the small businesses, the entrepreneurs who have been excluded, the exporters, the farmers…you name it. Watch this and see how you are treated. Is a one word answer to […]

I hadn’t meant to cry, but I couldn’t help myself. There were so many moments to pull on the heartstrings. Watching newly-promoted Eugene Goodman, the officer who had held off a braying mob just long enough to allow senators to escape from the Capitol only two weeks before, accompany Vice-President-elect Kamala Harris to her swearing […]

The “whiffy-fish-to-the-EU” disaster story just goes on and on, doesn’t it? Or maybe that should read “no-fish-to-the-EU”. Most people must know now that those involved in fishing are angry – very angry – that their valuable seafood is not getting to customers in the EU on time, if at all. Many boats are laid up, […]

They say revenge is sweet even if it comes after many years. My happy day of revenge will come on Friday 22 January 2021. It has been a  long time coming – in fact, from 1956. In those days I was a young National Serviceman in the infantry and with others, we had to dig […]

In an otherwise disappointing round of voting on Lords’ Amendments (LAs) to the Trade Bill, during which Tory MPs yet again voted en masse to weaken parliamentary oversight of trade deals, there was one bright spot. Lords Amendment Number Three to force the UK to withdraw from bilateral trade agreements with any country the High […]

There are many, many people out there who question whether lockdowns, masks and other ‘restrictions’ are actually more damaging to people’s health, mental health and the economy than the disease itself. This often leads them to conclude that we shouldn’t have lockdowns and that we should somehow simply ‘protect the vulnerable’ and let everyone else […]

“We managed to get a shipment through to Europe which took SIX days instead of ONE. Rejected because it’s no longer fresh. We’ve paid the carriage to send it out and we have to pay to ship it back. We have to bin the cheese. We have to refund the customer. We also LOSE the […]

Prime Minister Boris Johnson has compared anyone campaigning for free school meals during the February half-term-break to the Trumpist insurrectionists who stormed the Capitol. He did so in a WhatsApp message sent to all Tory MPs at lunchtime on Sunday 17 January, explaining why he was whipping them to abstain from voting for or against […]

This is the official press release for an important film on the urgent need for drastic changes in the world’s food and farming practices and for accountability and consequences for those who have exploited the planet for profit and contributed to the deaths of millions. Robert Golden, director of the 90-minute film This Good Earth, […]

Here is an account of one business caught up in the explosion of red tape and failure by government to prepare adequately for the Brexit it has ‘delivered’. Ed. Over the past 15 days I have not only been running my company as normal but I have been faced with largest threat to its future […]

As MP for Totnes, your constituency includes the fishing town of Brixham, where some of the most valuable catches of shellfish are landed and exported to the EU. The fishermen there must be as angry about the Brexit deal as those up the coast in West Bay. Or the guys in Scotland, who are going […]