An open letter to Sir Liam Fox MP Dear Sir Liam, Thank you for the North Somerset Residents Survey form, which you kindly sent me. It is a rather tasteful shade of green – an interesting change in Conservative branding. The party has, I think, traditionally used blue ever since my grandfather was a Conservative […]
We are aware that Labour has announced a candidate for South Devon. Some are implying on social media that he intends to run a serious campaign. But we would be very surprised if that’s his plan, after being dropped in by national HQ just weeks from the election. It would be a tragedy if a […]
At last, fourteen years of brutal underfunding, politically-motivated austerity, cronyism and corruption can be brought to an end on 4 July, when we can all exercise our democratic right and vote in the general election. With so many Conservative MPs standing down and dissatisfaction with Sunak growing in the Tory ranks, let alone in the […]
YouTube footage from the climate change conference COP 26 in Glasgow in 2021 reveals scores of delegates chanting “Another world is possible”. It reflected their disillusionment at the compromised conference process and at the lack of governments’ commitment to meaningful action in the face of the escalating climate crisis. While, unsurprisingly, the footage was not […]
A year on from MP Anthony Mangnall’s Brixham meeting: no-one’s laughing at the farce of our water supply. Last April I attended the first of MP Anthony Mangnall’s public meetings with South West Water. They were eventually held right across the constituency, and were much publicised by the MP as an opportunity to ‘hold South […]
STOP PRESS: ALREADY FULLY BOOKED! BE QUICK NEXT YEAR, IF YOU WANT TO TAKE PART! A leading local conservation charity is calling on people in Devon to help it discover more about the county’s bats. Devon Wildlife Trust is about has embarked on the ninth year of its Devon Bat Survey. The research is believed […]
Dear Editor, “I so hate this f*cking government!”: my all-too-familiar comment on political events of the day to Anna over morning tea and toast. The Today programme on Radio 4 announced that Sunak had emphatically rejected the EC’s tentative suggestion that a post-Brexit Youth Mobility Scheme should be put to member states. And Labour had […]
Dear Editor, We are drawing close to the first local election since Dorset Council became a unitary authority in 2019, which the Financial Times (FT) recently dubbed as: “… the most keenly watched ‘blue wall’ battle in a crucial set of local elections on May 2.” Under the headline “Dorset Tories tell Sunak’s MPs to […]
Fellow citizen-journalist editor, Peter Shearn of Totnes Pulse, contacted me to see if I would like to interview the secretary of state for education, Gillian Keegan. Apparently she had elected to kill two birds with one stone and give a ‘puff’ to the government’s free childcare for two-year-olds, and (presumably) to the re-election chances of […]
Then and now Bang, crash, rattle as the bus lumbers along a road full of potholes, badly patched sections and ‘oozing’ tarmac distorted by the weight of passing heavy vehicles… A familiar story? But that was in 1969, when I was a student in Spain: at the time, a country almost ‘third world’ in terms […]
On Thursday April 18, 2024 at 8:30am, a group of Dorset residents sat outside Bournemouth Crown Court holding what has become the most contentious sign in the UK legal system. They joined hundreds of others around England and Wales as part of the growing Defend Our Juries campaign, as they did in December 2023. That […]
We delivered our 20 hearts to Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole Council (BCP) on April 14 2024, to call for an all-at-once rollout of a 20mph speed limit. BCP council is proposing some limited extensions to 20mph areas, like the one currently out for consultation in the Boscombe area. We’re in an environmental emergency and a […]
Meet Mel J Stride, the ‘Right Honourable’ MP with a controversial association with the loan charge scandal. A member of the Conservative Party, he has been the Member of Parliament for Central Devon since 2010. What is the Loan Charge? Sixty-seven thousand people are being pursued by HMRC (HM Revenue and Customs: the tax office) under a piece of legislation – the Loan Charge […]
Dear Editor, ‘Disgusted’ doesn’t come close. Although even now I am still sometimes surprised by how badly these Tories behave, I am genuinely shocked at what Simon Jupp is up to. Jupp, the Conservative elected as East Devon’s MP in 2019, is attempting to deceive voters by purloining – for his own purposes – the […]
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 […]
On Saturday 23 March 2024, Cornwall for Europe hosted Molly Scott Cato, a former Member of the European Parliament, at a meeting at Truro School. Over 50 local members of Cornwall for Europe heard Molly Scott Cato’s talk entitled The Journey Home: how can we return to the heart of Europe? Molly Scott Cato is […]
Members of Extinction Rebellion Wimborne staged a colourful protest at the gates of St Giles House, the seat of the Earl of Shaftesbury, in Wimborne St Giles on Monday March 18, 2024, which was the St Patrick’s Day Bank Holiday in Northern Ireland. We wanted to raise awareness of the Earl of Shaftesbury’s exploitation of […]
England’s eels are in trouble. Since the 1980s, the numbers in our rivers and wetlands have declined by some 90 per cent. Without urgent intervention, a once-common animal could face extinction. There are several reasons for this dramatic fall. One of the most obvious is the growth of man-made barriers blocking access to suitable habitat. […]
Members of cross-party campaign group Dorchester Euro Café were out in Dorchester on March 23, asking people how they are feeling on a range of issues since we left the EU. This was part of a ‘Day for Rejoin’, called for by the team who organise the annual National Rejoin March, and was one of […]
“Oh no, I’d like the rude ones, please!” said the immaculately-groomed lady at the table, pointing to the “Bollocks to Brexit” stickers when I offered the polite ones; “my youngsters and their friends all love them! And in any case, I don’t care if I offend anyone with the message: they’re probably Leavers anyway!” Devon […]
The BBC have reported that ‘Perenco UK pledges no repeat’ of the oil spillage in Poole Harbour. In reply, local activists from Extinction Rebellion say the only way for Perenco to honour this pledge is to stop oil extraction in Poole Harbour now. Extinction Rebellion (XR) groups from Bournemouth-Christchurch-Poole (BCP), Wimborne, Purbeck, East Dorset Friends […]
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 […]
The first step … It is a year since Axminster was awarded Plastic Free Community (PFC) status. This doesn’t mean that the whole town is plastic-free; no town/city ever will be! It does mean, however, that the marine conservation charity, Surfers Against Sewage, recognises the work we have done to start reducing the impact of […]
People who love Europe and who believe that the UK should re-join the European Union celebrated the first anniversary of Dorchester Euro Café on February 24, 2024, with birthday cake, coffee and conversation. Dorchester Euro Café started as a one-off event in February 2023, but attendance was so good it has continued as a regular, […]
The founders of the South Devon Primary, a community initiative to choose one progressive candidate to unite behind at the general election, are delighted to announce that Dr Hannah Bunting will be chairing two of the seven Town Hall hustings being held over a two week period from 2 March to 16 March. Dr Bunting […]
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 […]
In 2021, I wrote about the dangerous dowry left to the new Somerset unitary authority by the previous Conservative council. The combination of an unwanted reorganisation and a systematic failure to invest in local services had left Somerset especially vulnerable to financial crisis. The warning of trouble ahead was all too correct. In November 2023, […]
In a matter of days, the members of Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole Council (BCP) will make a momentous decision. The result may affect the delivery of services to vulnerable children across the region. And though this will only apply to local council services, it could become a national touchstone. The question is whether to join […]
A new climate and nature café is to be launched by Extinction Rebellion (XR) Wimborne for people suffering from eco-anxiety over the climate and nature crises. The pop-up café is at the Cafe @ The Allendale in Wimborne on Thursday 15 February from 4pm to 6pm. XR Wimborne say it is an opportunity for people […]
Simon Jupp, the MP for the constituency centred on Exmouth, but who is standing as a candidate for our area in the election, is putting out this brochure in Colyton (sent to me by a resident) claiming to be the ‘local MP’, although in fact that is Richard Foord. Inside, he also claims to be […]