Suella Braverman, the Home Secretary, has come up with yet another outrageous proposal: this would include new laws to restrict the use of tents by homeless people, arguing that many of them see it as a “lifestyle choice”… As if sleeping rough is a ‘lifestyle choice’! She also plans to create “a civil offence whereby […]
Despite the vindictiveness continually meted out by this government to migrants, poor people, sick people, people on benefits (the list is endless), if someone hadn’t told me about Suella Braverman’s latest wheeze, I wouldn’t have believed it. The Financial Times (£) says that Braverman “seeks to curb rough sleepers by restricting use of tents on […]
It was quite a coup for South Hams Society to get Henry Dimbleby to speak on the important issues of food security, food safety and the future of agriculture in this country and the event held in Kingsbridge was well-attended on a chilly Friday night . Also on the panel were the MP for Totnes […]
Boat people: glory … or infamy? “Rule Britannia, Britannia rules the waves!” As a maritime nation, surrounded by sea, it is hardly surprising that boats and ‘boat people’ of one form or another have figured so prominently throughout British history … for better and for worse. We shall use the term ‘boats’ rather than ‘ships’, […]
Since Labour announced their plans to either remove the charitable status of private schools, or add VAT to school fees, social media and right-wing outlets have been awash with people claiming it wouldn’t raise any money in reality, or it would cause untold private schools failing and ‘flooding’ the state sector with students. I thought […]
Teenage author and student Elsie Starr gives a personal insight into dyspraxia Imagine constantly worrying about tripping over, having to overlearn every Maths equation so it sticks in your long-term memory or dreading PE lessons, especially if throwing and catching are involved. Well, this is a reality for many young people, like me, who have […]
In July 2023, Rishi Sunak made a surprising public attack on the leaders of a major UK bank. “Rishi Sunak slams Coutts”. It is perhaps not surprising, however, that he picked the wrong issue. What prompted his unusual intervention was the denial of one sort of bank account to one rich man. Sunak ought to […]
We need to take a dive into some of the differences between “smuggling” and “trafficking”, and, before we start, both are bad and both can involve exploitation. Daniel Sohege explains: In the simplest terms, and we’ll get into why this isn’t simple in a bit, trafficking, more often than not, is a longer term form […]
Leader of the Men’s Mental Health group at his school, year 12 student, Oli Smith, candidly shares his own struggle with body image and the impact sport has had on this, including his experience of anorexia. He also offers advice for anyone struggling with the same issues. Body image is a major focus point which […]
So, press regulator, IPSO, has ruled that Jeremy Clarkson discriminated against Meghan Markle in his column in The Sun that promoted “hatred” of her with a series of sexist tropes. So what? It’s not nearly enough. 25,100 people complained to the Independent Press Standards Organisation about the column, written by Jeremy Clarkson on December 18 […]
When working at Love146UK we researched this. We campaigned against this. Biological age assessments are notoriously unreliable, and incredibly traumatic for children who have been through war and persecution. It is part of a pattern with this government to put immigration enforcement ahead of child protection, though. They are abandoning the very principles of safeguarding […]
Anti-fascists, including large numbers of local people, gathered outside a hotel in Newquay this morning to stand up to a far-right campaign that’s stirring up fear and hatred of asylum-seekers. Tom Scott reports from the scene. It was a lovely, fresh spring morning in Cornwall today, more than making up the hour of lost sleep […]
I get a few messages from lovely people asking for basic information to counter hostile anti-migrant narratives. So I’ve pulled this together to try and cover the typical points – hopefully it helps with those awkward dinner discussions or difficult family members. 1. ‘We can’t help everyone.’ This is often said by otherwise liberal people. […]
Hunt’s latest Budget shows the UK heading for a dismal future. According to the Office for Budget Responsibility, the UK is now facing two years with the sharpest fall in living standards since records began. The economy will contract again this year. The level of taxation is at the highest for many decades. Our growth […]
Cancelling Sir David Attenborough, Gary Lineker and the BBC Singers and reducing BBC orchestra numbers all in a single week does seem like a bit of an orchestrated PR campaign to get the BBC to self sabotage. To quote Ian Fleming: ‘Twice is coincidence. Three times is enemy action.’ There has been a long-running campaign […]
As readers will no doubt be aware, Shamima Begum’s quest to have her British citizenship returned to her has failed yet again. I’m not going to get into the details of why, and of what sort of threat she poses to our national security. Nor am I concerned with why she went to join ISIS […]
In John Grisham’s 1989 novel A Time to Kill, ten-year-old Black girl Tonya Hailey is viciously raped, abused and left for dead by two White drunken men in 1980s Mississippi. Defence lawyer Jake Brigance, played by Matthew McConaughey in a film of the same name, takes on the defence of the little girl’s father, Carl […]
With thanks to Care4Calais for their kind permission to reproduce this account. It is impossible to imagine how terrifying this must have been for them and for the unfortunate people who had been put in that hotel. This government, forever looking for others on whom to pile the blame for the effects of their policies, […]
This is a long post from Oct 2019, and some of what it says would have seemed seem hard to believe back then. But now? Now when we see cuts to public services, the increasing wealth gap, steady defunding of council services, the running down of the NHS and talk of the use of artificial […]
We face the biggest group of strikes in recent history today. That is not surprising. A belligerent and out-of-touch government is deliberately trying to crush the living standards of public sector workers when paying up makes total sense. Richard Murphy debunks the ‘no money’ myth that government would have us all believe. The government says […]
Richard Haviland on the Clarkson incident. For those who do not know what he said and wish to, you can read it here. Be warned. It cannot be unread. No decent editor would have let it go to press. Ed Even by the usual standards of non-apologies, it was dire. A classic non-apology will tell […]
A few thousand bedraggled, desperate human beings have crossed the English Channel to seek our help. They are unarmed and come in peace from war-torn and devastated countries. In many cases, their plight was caused by the bombing of their homes by us and our allies. Under international law, they are not considered to be […]
“It’s the most controversial World Cup in history and a ball hasn’t even been kicked.” Ever since FIFA chose Qatar back in 2010, the smallest nation to have hosted football’s greatest competition has faced some big questions. From accusations of corruption in the bidding process to the treatment of migrant workers who built the stadiums, […]
Our social contract – the ‘deal’ that makes us a civilised country – is under grave threat both practically and philosophically. And we are not talking about it. Practically, the UK is in a grave situation. We are in the midst of a serious cost-of-living crisis which will plunge over half of the UK population into fuel poverty […]
Recently I saw a story on West Country Voices. Two women wanted to sign up for a meeting with an MP to ask him an inconvenient question. As a result, they have been paid a visit by the police officer. This story never got attention it deserves. And it should. Because this is not only […]
The Office for National Statistics recently published their results from the 2021 Census on ethnic group, national identity, language and religion. Fairly soon after, Nigel Farage and others tweeted that London, Birmingham and Manchester were now ‘minority White’ cities. Now call me sceptical, but I thought I would check the data for myself, so I […]
I had a long discussion with a radio producer on what I thought was wrong with the Autumn Statement. We discussed the numbers but what I said is most important is not what was said, but what was not. That’s where the frightening bits are. It was a very long time ago that I realised […]
As a photographer, I have frequently had to temp to top up my income. Working in customer service for social housing providers was the worst job I had. In the wake of the horrifying, avoidable death of Awaab Ishak, this is a record of my experiences. In training I was told how to “overcome objections” […]
Dear West Country Voices, I think I distantly remember a time when governments cared for their people, nurtured them, assisted them, spent our money neutralising the corrosive causes of poverty and criminality. I get the sense that the ‘nouvelle vague‘ of the ultra-right wing is using us like lab rats in an experiment. Shrink the […]
Benefits on Trial is based on my work in Cornwall since 2012 as a volunteer advocate with adults who have a learning disability. In recent years, that work has increasingly concerned benefits cases: helping people with their applications for Personal Independence Payment (PIP) and Employment and Support Allowance (ESA); accompanying them to assessments; requesting reconsideration […]