Traditional Conservative politics, as the name suggests, amongst other things, places a significant emphasis on the conservation of the tried and tested, the reliable, the traditional, and so on. Traditional conservativism prioritizes practical experience over abstract theorizing, and prefers gradual changes, organically developing and emerging from the local community, to sweeping changes imposed from above. For a […]
There is barely a day that passes where I don’t get more angry and more ashamed in equal measure about this so-called government. Their policies are like something from a dystopian novel. I am a straight, white cis man, so really I have nothing to fear from their political games. However, I actually take time […]
There was a moment recently when journalist Lewis Goodall made me cry. “The kind of crushing thing”, he said, “is what pulls them, like so many before them, to Britain. It’s the esteem they hold us in. They think Britain is different. They think Britain will treat them better”. It's poignant to think that, even […]
This is the horrible email Suella Braverman is sending to the Tory faithful. Make no mistake, this othering and demonisation of asylum seekers and those who defend their rights is a classic indicator of this country’s descent into fascism. Resist! Here is the email in full with my annotations. “We tried to stop the small […]
From today, the government has announced, “anyone crossing the Channel will be detained and removed to a safe country within weeks.” To be clear, Home Secretary, Suella Braverman MP, is not talking about those travelling from Calais to Dover with P&O, DFDS, or Irish Ferries. No, she is talking about desperate people, mostly genuine asylum […]
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 […]
Dear Tobias Ellwood, I was a social worker before I had to resign to care for my son, who has additional needs and high anxiety, and I’m currently on Income Support and Carer’s Allowance, as he struggles with school attendance. I have encountered parent blame, particularly prior to my son’s diagnosis of Autism Spectrum Disorder […]
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 […]
Some comments on social media around migrants are so vile – I’m venting in a take down of the top anti migrant ‘gotchas’… God help me. 1. We need security checks!/people in the asylum system are criminals, drug dealers, terrorists, blah blah The asylum system takes years. You the think government aren’t doing background checks […]
Thom Brooks, Professor of Law and Government at Durham Law School, has written a report spelling out the truth about the appalling mismanagement of Brexit by this government in the context of the small boats crisis. Set aside for a moment that Brexit is intrinsically disastrous, you could be forgiven for expecting its slavish, zealous […]
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, […]
Once upon a time, there were some men who made a lot of money from doing things that were wrecking the planet. They had known for ages that they were putting toxins in the air and water, causing global warming and damaging the health of their employees and the general public and the environment, but […]
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 […]
If Alexander Darwall, the landowner behind the wild camping judgement, had actually been hired to recruit numbers to the right to roam cause, he could not have done a better job. 3,000 people made the effort to travel to the village of Cornwood, climb the roads and tracks to Stall Moor, stand together in the […]
Dozens of children have been abducted by gangs in Brighton, the Observer reveals today. A whistleblower and child protection sources told the newspaper that the children have been taken off the street and “bundled into cars”. The source said that the children have disappeared and have not been found. “They’re being taken from the street […]
We are grateful to Guy Shrubsole for permission to reproduce this thread: If we’re to restore wild camping rights on Dartmoor, we need a new Right to Roam Act – and a government willing to pass it. New legislation is how we defend and extend public access to nature – anything less won’t cut it. […]
It would be easy to feel pretty despairing right now. After all, things have got steadily worse. We thought the NHS was at the brink in 2021. We had no idea how much further this callous government was prepared to push it, how much death and misery it would wilfully ignore, while pumping out propaganda […]
Refugees: how to normalise the abnormal in 75 easy steps. 1) Flood public discourse with falsehoods and straw men, to ensure there are no commonly accepted facts; making serious discussion of a complex issue impossible. 2)Relentlessly conflate asylum with immigration, knowing that the media will play along. 3)Call legitimate asylum seekers “illegal migrants”, confident that […]
The High Court’s decision of 19 December 2022 has a number of severe ramifications, particularly for child protection, while also imposing limitations on the Rwanda policy which effectively make the government’s arguments for proceeding with it meaningless. Why is it a child protection issue? Surely the government has said it won’t send unaccompanied children to […]
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 […]
Having noticed the increase in sewage smells in their bay, Jovi and Sonny send a message to local water company, South West Water, to clean up their act. In 2021, South West Water intentionally discharged 680 hours of sewage into the River Lim – the equivalent to the whole month of February, 24 hours a […]
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 […]
When I was first contacted with this story, my source asked me to listen and tell her whether I thought this story was at all weird. My immediate response on hearing what happened was “Bloody hell!”. I think that reaction will be shared by many readers and my comments on this incident are at the […]
This is the Home Secretary appointed by Truss and Sunak. Let us park for one moment the fact that this woman was obliged to resign having been caught out sharing official documents on her private email and spent only a few days in the ‘sin bin’ before being reappointed to one of the highest offices […]
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 […]