Home Secretary, Suella Braverman MP, calls asylum seekers travelling here in small boats across the English Channel an “invasion.” One of her predecessors, Priti Patel MP, called them ‘illegal immigrants’. They are mostly desperate, destitute, often stateless men, women and children fleeing from war, torture, oppression, sex-trafficking and persecution. And the conditions when they arrive on these shores […]
Third time lucky. Or is it fourth? Who cares. Doubtless, King Charles will have had another ‘dear, oh dear’ up his well-pulled sleeve. Vividly staking his pro-Brexit bent and trumpeting the exit, sans non-withdrawal agreement, in the spring of 2019, was Sunak’s blueprint. Unswervingly, he went on to claim ‘proximity to a market’ as harmful. […]
The Conservative Party have now been in power in the UK for 12 years. Over that time huge economic and social problems have emerged. It is clear that the UK needs a change in direction. And this is what Truss and Kwarteng promised. They have now shown very clearly how they intend to tackle these […]
Dear Sheryll Murray, I see that Kwasi Kwarteng, the least competent chancellor in living memory, has gone against all sensible economic advice and announced fiscal policies that almost instantly tanked the pound. Please tell me your thoughts on a tax cut for the highest earners, whilst the absolute majority of your constituents will get almost […]
The Queen was undoubtedly loved by the nation, but a frenzied media can lead to mass mourning being taken too far and backfiring, argues Tomasz Oryński… and he has two case studies from his native Poland to act as a warning to the UK. The Queen died at the beautiful age of 96 years. After […]
Johnson has a strong claim to be the worst UK PM so far in terms of “… wages, economy, COVID, poverty, … preserving democracy, etc, …” But before the history books are written, he will be eclipsed by Truss, argues Mark E Thomas. It is true that Truss has inherited (and played an active part […]
Prof Danny Blanchflower and I issued a press release yesterday calling for radical reform of the Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee (BoE MPC). We think this is really important to protect people from economic harm in the recession to come. The MPC has set BoE interest rates and made all the vital decisions on […]
The team at West Country Voices wish to commemorate the passing of Her Majesty the Queen and the ending of the second Elizabethan era. Most of us have lived our entire lives with Elizabeth II as our monarch. She has been a rare constant in a rapidly changing world and the embodiment of public service […]
The below is reproduced from a thread of tweets found here, published by a practising barrister. We are reproducing this here to share and raise awareness on this issue. Barristers who work in our criminal courts have voted for an all out strike on 5 September. This is historic, and necessary. A barrister explains why […]
“Your government?! What a joke that is!” That was the sniggering reaction earlier this afternoon, albeit not in so many words, from our Danish neighbours in the Spanish village where we are spending a few weeks. OK, so it’s human nature to find it easier to recognise other people’s problems than to acknowledge our own, […]
I am fed up with Tory attacks on lawyers who defend people against injustice, discrimination, abuse and deportation using the laws parliament has created when they say nothing about those right-wing lawyers who spend their time attacking almost everything of value. This cover from The Mail today is typical of the attacks on lawyers. In […]
Danny Blanchflower had a longish discussion pn August 17 in which we agreed that the inflation that is dominating economic discussion about our economy at present is a passing phase. That does not mean it is not important. Far from it, in fact. But what it does mean is that when discussing inflation we have […]
The Tory leadership election is offering the party faithful an image of a land about to flow with milk and honey, so good are the prospects arising from the so far unspecified benefits of Brexit. The reality is about as far from that is it can be. In reality, this morning we have news of […]
Politicians whose only response to desperate times is to resort to fantastical mythologising, scapegoating of imaginary enemies and suppression of protest should be seen as truly dangerous, argues Tom Scott. In June, the eminent historian of Nazism, Timothy Snyder, was interviewed by Ukraine’s Euromaidan Press. Professor Snyder, who has also written extensively about the threat […]
Truss has launched her so-called ‘plan for growth.’ This article shows that the likely impact of that plan is to redistribute wealth upwards at an increasing rate, impoverishing most of the UK population. The post-war period 1945-1980 was known as the Golden Age of Capitalism; the period from 1980-2015 was the age of Market Capitalism. […]
How many people lived in fear in the summer of 1914, dreading what might happen? Come to that, what about 1939? People must have known that they were living on a precipice then, just as we are now. A disaster is about to happen, but there seems to be denial all around. The disaster that […]
Dear West Country Voices, Even if we aren’t remotely interested in sport, I think we can all rejoice unequivocally at the success of the England women’s football team in the European championships; it’s an achievement to be celebrated. I’m sure I’m not alone in being delighted at their win if only because they have done […]
On July 27 we hosted another of our informal discussions on a hot topic. There is nothing hotter right now than human rights, under assault from this government on multiple fronts and via multiple bills. We take our rights for granted at our peril. Key takeaways from our panel – Cal Roscow of Best for […]
The UK Government has a Bill of Rights bill which (at the time of writing) is in the Commons for its second reading. Many civil liberties commentators have expressed alarm about the Bill, suggesting that it risks watering down the rights of UK citizens. Are they right to be concerned about the Bill, or are they over-reacting? They are […]
Andy Steel, from Devon, believes police failed to act appropriately when their urgent help was needed: Just because you live in a hidden, rural village doesn’t mean you can escape hit-and-run drivers. Not long ago a 17 year-old with a chequered motoring history ploughed into the front of my parked 1.8 tonne Land Rover with […]
Invited to come to Britain in the 1950s, when the country was massively short of workers (sound familiar?), Asquith Xavier left Dominica where he had been a police officer and in the army. For ten years, he worked as a porter at Marylebone station in London. Then, in the spring of 1966, the 46-year-old decided […]
Dear West Country Voices, As a matter of urgency I write to remind you of the court case challenging the Government’s policy on forced deportation to Rwanda of asylum seekers and refugees to the UK. There is a live protest outside the Royal Courts of Justice in London TOMORROW (July 12) with a LIVE share […]
Warning: strong language. Ed Because I was busy last week, this episode of The Week in Tory covers more than seven days, but not – you’ll be amazed to hear – the 700 years it would take most governments to get through this lot. Remember, it’s OK to want to scream or take drugs during […]
The Vote Leave government must have thought it was being so clever, abusing its position to slip draconian, Putinesque provisions into the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022. Part 3 on ‘Public Order’ targets all the protests and protestors that the Home Secretary, Priti Patel, in particular despises: Extinction Rebellion, Black Lives Matter and […]
Dear West Country Voices, As I came through passport control at Edinburgh Airport last week, I saw a sign saying: “Welcome to GREAT Britain.” I had 40 minutes to look at it as we threaded our way slowly towards passport control. There had already been a 20-minute delay when the plane landed, because the right […]
In the wake of Steve Bray’s threatened arrest, this article counts the warning signs the UK has largely ignored. And shows what we can do about it. When Johnson first pulled together a cabinet of market fundamentalists, most people ignored the risk of a constitutional crisis. Most of us ignored Philip Hammond’s warning about “extreme […]
This is quite some story. It was news to me, but perhaps you know someone who has also been a victim, or maybe you yourself, in which case this will resonate painfully. I am keeping the names and places anonymous for obvious reasons, but here’s the tale. A friend decided to sell her 4×4, partly […]
This is controversial, I know. I may have to take cover for posting this. However, in my view, some USA ‘rights’ are topsy-turvy. There is the right to bear arms, under the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution. Citizens have the right carry a gun that only has one mechanical function: to kill or maim. Consequently, […]
The sky was overcast and the air felt dank when we emerged from the gloom of the underground at Regents Park station. My friends and I turned down a nearby street in the hope we were going in the right direction. There is a unique grandness to London’s maze-like streets that kind of makes you […]
Last week I did a talk on what it’s like to report on UK immigration and asylum. There’s been a bit of interest in it, so I thought I’d take you behind-the-scenes, too. Topline: it’s like navigating a minefield – and it’s getting tougher. Here’s how. I worked for the Home Office during the rollout […]