Author: Anthea Simmons

As some of you may know, I am one of the co-founders of the South Devon Primary, along with Simon Oldridge and Ben Long. Born out of frustration with an electoral system that threatened to see the Conservatives’ near hundred year rule in the Totnes/South Devon constituency because the opposition vote was split, the two […]

We talked to organiser Simon Oldridge (SO) about what those involved hope will be a watershed event on November 27 in Central Hall, Westminster. WCV: This looks very timely, coming after yet another COP and as we read that richer nations are quietly (or noisily) abandoning or watering down their net zero targets. What do […]

Annie Hill-Smith: On 7 November at 10.00a.m. the Dartmoor National Park Authority’s Development Management Committee will hear the Tree Protection Order relating to the trees at Kenwyn. The Park’s Tree Officer is recommending that the order is granted. Hurray! The meeting will be at the DNPA’s office at Parke, just outside Bovey Tracey. I’ve lobbied […]

The campaign organisation HOPE not hate‘s Weekend of HOPE will see hundreds and thousands of leaflets delivered to houses in the UK and thousands of people will take to the streets with a simple message: communities are stronger together. We live in an era in which certain politicians and oligarchs are hellbent on dividing us […]

We recently organised a free event for young people with activist and campaigner, Rob Hopkins, also of transition town fame and the author of many books, including the inspirational ‘How to Fall in Love with the Future‘. (You can read our review of the book here.) Held in Ashburton Arts Centre, which Andy Williamson generously […]

Let me start by saying straight off that I think everyone should read this book. If you are feeling bleak and despairing about the future of the planet, or utterly disgusted about the seemingly inexorable rise of the far right or just plain fed up with the way things are, then you definitely need this […]

George Monbiot’s article in The Guardian (27 May 2025) will resonate with many on the progressive side of politics, and especially with those who are involved in street campaigns to counter the alarming rise of the far-right. When we talk to people on the streets of south Devon’s towns, we consistently pick up a growing […]

A Westminster Hall debate on an e-petition calling for the UK to join the EU is scheduled for Monday 24 March 2025, from 4:30pm. The debate will be led by Paul Davies, Labour MP for Colne Valley. The petition was initiated by a Robert McMaster, who stated: “I believe joining the EU would boost the […]

UPDATE: The latest from Martin. Not great. “This afternoon our landlords have released a public statement (https://www.dartington.org/forest-garden-update/) which contain a number of misleading statements which we feel we have to correct. “We have had constructive and productive discussions with Martin over the past week.” No, we had one meeting on Weds 19th March when positive noises […]

Do you remember way back when a storm like Eowyn was something of a freak event? It was , in fact, so unusual that a certain weatherman blithely denied the threat back in October 1987. Storms did not even get names until 2015, when the Met Office and Met Eireann started a joint initiative to […]

We needed some good news, so it’s great to be able to report that Wes Streeting has given the go-ahead for the much-needed Women and Children’s Hospital to be built at the Treliske site, on the edge of Truro. I first spoke to Roberta Fuller, the Programme Director for the scheme, in late 2024, when […]

It’s beginning to look as though Labour are either determined to demonstrate either that they are a) metrocentric (as opposed to London-and-wealthy-donor-Conservatives) or b) that they simply do not have any understanding of what goes on in the lower population-density rural areas of England. First there was the more-than-clumsy mishandling of the farmers’ inheritance tax […]

We’ve all seen them, haven’t we? The earth-shade painted, faux-timber-clad housing estates with their strips of fake grass, their crescents of executive homes in the best spots, and, overall, the dead, sterile look of a film set for the Stepford Wives. This pop-up townlet and its maze of little ‘streets’ boast dreamily bucolic names, often […]

Back in 2019, David Milliband delivered the annual Fulbright Lecture at Pembroke College, Oxford University. The speech was titled ‘The New Arrogance of Power’ and he argued people were no longer protected from abuse by their leaders by international law and standards of behaviour and that this, in turn, had led to appalling humanitarian horrors. […]

If the last ten years or so have taught us anything, it should surely be that the era of the ‘good chaps’ theory of government is well and truly over, and ‘it’ (authoritarianism/oligarchy/fascism) could very easily happen here – if we don’t take steps to prevent it. It is, frankly, dewy-eyed to think otherwise and […]

Roz Savage MP has selected the CAN Bill in the Private Members’ Bill Ballot, and now has the chance to progress all the way. This is a golden opportunity to pass a Climate and Nature Act—but it’s critical that there are as many supporting MPs as possible to help it succeed. It’s especially important to […]

I am happy to admit that having camped extensively as a girl guide in my youth, I have no plans to wild camp again in my twilight years, even though there genuinely is nothing to beat that enveloping, cossetting stillness and powerful sense of connection to the land to be felt beneath the star-studded velvet […]

Did you get a Co-op card despite being very resistant to having more plastic in your wallet and absolutely hating the ‘privileged’ pricing blackmail from other stores? Did you get a card because you really liked the idea that you would be helping to raise money for small local charities? That’s why I got mine, […]

The Observer: ‘Boris Johnson faces ‘serious questions’ over new business with Uranium entrepreneur. Former prime minister also under fire for hiring ex-aide Charlotte Own as VP despite her lack of energy sector experience’ Carol Cadwalladr, The Observer, September 8 2024 How many of us read that headline and think ‘nothing will happen. He always gets […]

Please do watch this and share widely.

It’s hard to focus on anything beyond July 4 and the results on July 5, but if you can get to Dartington Hall on Saturday 6 or Sunday 7, or both, you can still get tickets to attend the sessions that West Country Voices are hosting – and they are absolute bangers and wholly in […]

No doubt there are many Conservative MPs who were complacently confident about the safety of their seats only a few months ago. And no doubt many of those are now realising that that complacency was misplaced. The growing Conservative fury and desperation manifests itself in many ways, from the tetchy belligerence of Sunak, to the […]

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 […]

“It’s a scandal worse than the Post Office Horizon debacle,” says the retired consultant radiologist who contacted me, urging West Country Voices to look into the use of Physician Associates in the NHS. Plenty of us think we know what’s going on in the NHS. We’ve seen the charts detailing the systematic underfunding. We’ve read […]

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 […]

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 […]

Look. I absolutely get copyright. As a children’s author with a sixth title out in July, I want my copyright protected. PDF versions of my books and pirated audio versions crop up from time to time and my publisher, part of Penguin/Random House, quickly gets them taken down. These breaches are not innocent. People are […]

Update: Riverford’s petition will be debated in parliament Jan 22 with potentially important ramifications for farmers across the UK. We’ll be listening in. Devon-based Riverford (of veg box fame) have launched a new #GetFairAboutFarming campaign, calling for British supermarkets to sign up to the principles of Riverford’s Fair to Farmers charter: Pay what you agreed […]

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 […]

And so it begins again. Despite the unanimous verdict of the High Court decision back in the summer, wealthy asset manager, Alexander Darwall, has elected to challenge that decision and ask the Supreme Court to make a final judgement as to whether the right to wild camp (leaving no trace) exists or not. On Sunday […]