Dear Editor-in-Chief I saw this tweet and I found myself wondering what on earth has happened to us? Why aren’t we outraged to hear that the government won’t be putting any Covid restrictions in place unless deaths go above 1000 a week or, as was later clarified, 50,000 a year? How have we got to […]
Dear Editor-in-Chief, You have recently published two contrasting articles on electric cars. Without wanting to contribute to the for-and-against debate, I wish to offer a view on an aspect of these vehicles which seems to be overlooked in most reports about them. I well remember an item on electric cars – the vehicle of the […]
Dear Editor, Re: Let’s not mince words: the mass murder in Plymouth was an act of terrorism I worry society is becoming too quick to judge and that we are too easily convinced we are right on every issue (having tapped into the opinions of people ‘like us’ on social media). During the Brexit campaign […]
Every day on the television news and in the newspapers we see huge parts of the world on fire and other parts submerged beneath exceptional flooding. The recently released Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report makes it clear that this is undeniably the result of global warming caused by human activity. This report goes […]
Madam, David Love is quite right to call for a pay rise for NHS staff: Why can’t we give nurses a fair pay rise? Letter to the editor BUT it isn’t just NHS staff that are suffering: (almost) all of us are. TUC research shows that about 58 to 61 per cent of national income […]
Dear Editor, I am puzzled. The one clear thing to emerge from the Brexit referendum campaign was that we would stop paying £350 million each week to the EU, and instead spend it on our wonderful NHS. I calculate that £350 million a week is just over £18 billion a year. It is difficult to […]
Dear Editor, In response to the news (which was already known to many) that the EU was to charge UK visitors €7 to enter the Schengen zone Conor Burns (MP Bournemouth West) tweeted on the 3rd August ‘We must absolutely not impose the same on EU visitors to the UK‘. Mr Burns seems to be unaware that […]
Of course, our PM, who obviously prides himself in ignoring virtually all the norms of respectful, moral citizens, would regard the above as being nothing to do with him. With three marriages, multiple both publicised and, I would expect, hidden affairs, as well as an unknown number of children he confirms the first part but […]
Meet Maia: 19 years old, resident of Orkney. Describes herself as “very politically aware”. We’d agree. Mike Galsworthy first drew our attention to her wise insights into the dirty tactics being exploited by Johnson and his gang. She has made an exclusive follow up video for us…hopefully the first of many! She’s amazed, dismayed, frustrated […]
West Country Voices (WCB) launched a year ago with the help and support of Louise Houghton at Yorkshire Bylines, Mike Galsworthy and Tom Brufatto at March for Change and the blessing of Peter Jukes and Simon Colegrave at Byline Times. Run by a team of volunteer, citizen journalists, editors, proof readers and a picture editor […]
On Friday 23 July, West Country Voices will be one year old! We’re getting on for a million reads thanks to you and we reckon we’ve put out some great stuff – punchy articles that bring you the stories, angles and insights that you won’t get from mainstream media. We’re volunteers and citizen journalists, free […]
If you care about keeping what is left of the NHS in public hands, then please watch this. Managed care sounds so seductive. Integrated care systems sound so seductive. It’s a front. Demand proper answers…no generic letter from head office! WRITE NOW!
Dear Editor, I’d like to offer a different perspective in support of Clare Knight’s excellent article “Why I won’t stop wearing a mask post-19 July”. My wife’s level of immunity is compromised, so we have to take extra care with regard to the pandemic. The wearing of face-masks and observing of social distancing has not […]
It’s hard keep up with the new material generated daily by this government, so we thought we’d take a breather in the form of a review of some of the articles we have put out on the subjects of corruption and cronyism in the past year. Check out the dates…it’s depressing to realise that we […]
We are very pleased to be able to reproduce the Twitter thread from the UK Trade and Business Commission with their kind permission. The message was pretty clear: Brexit has been very damaging to a very valuable sector of our economy and to our soft power worldwide. It is also clear that the government appears […]
Join us on 13 July at 18:30 when we will be discussing ‘The Little Black Book of Data and Democracy’ with its author, Kyle Taylor. The event is free and whilst it would be best if you had read the short book before, it’s not a prerequisite. You’ll almost certainly want to read it afterwards! […]
In our last conversation, we spoke with Philip Colfox of the Symondsbury Estate, an enterprise on the edge of Bridport in Dorset which combines farming, leisure and retail. Philip wrote to us afterwards with some ideas for a radical shake up in the UK’s food production. Here are his thoughts:
Cornwall for Europe, the pro Europe campaign group, have created a special message for world leaders as they arrive in Cornwall for the G7 summit. A huge banner has been put up on a barn at the end of the runway at Newquay Airport and they believe it will be in full view as the leaders land in Cornwall.
The NHS data grab has finally really got the coverage it deserves and people power has won a stay of execution.
The UK today: record foodbank use, hungry children, an obesity crisis and post-Brexit trade deals which threaten to decimate British farming and flood the market with food produced to lower standards, and the politicians chant the ‘cheap food’ mantra. The costs of cheap food are high – for humans, animals and the planet. What can […]
Thank you for publishing the fascinating and thought-provoking diary entry of the late John Evans. As someone has already commented, he was, like my father, a member of a generation that knew at first hand the horrors of a Europe divided against itself. My father had to volunteer to join the British Army when World […]
John Evans’s diary (courtesy of his daughter Jane Welby) Jane Welby: ”My Dad, a lifelong Tory voter and Telegraph reader, died last summer aged 93 and we have been reading through diaries we never knew existed. I found this thoughtful and prescient entry from October 1971 rather poignant:” Thursday 28 October 1971 “Tonight our Westminster […]
West Country Voices contacted Mr Liddell-Grainger for a comment for our article earlier today (24 May) and he responded with this, giving us permission to use it however we liked. We’re showing you the original document and the text, in case it’s not clear on your device. “The “spoof website” that eclipsed the start of […]
Dear Editor, On 6 May, much of the country went to the ballot box to select county council representatives. “On the doorsteps people told me that ‘politicians don’t listen to us anyway’ ”. So said Ruth Rollin, Liberal Democrat candidate for Brockenhurst. She continues, “I’d like to hope that we would all welcome a voting […]
We are reproducing this Twitter thread with the kind permission of investigative journalist and campaigner Stefan Simanowitz so that it can be read beyond the twittersphere. A year ago today, I broke the #CareHomeScandal The reason so many had died in care homes was because the government had INSTRUCTED hospitals to send people “who may […]
“The moment we no longer have a free press, anything can happen. What makes it possible for a totalitarian or any other dictatorship to rule is that people are not informed; how can you have an opinion if you are not informed? If everybody always lies to you, the consequence is not that you believe […]
This is a press release from the Make Votes Matter team. Multi million pound police and mayoral budgets could be controlled by officials that most people simply didn’t vote for under new voting Bill The British public is being urged to tell the Government not to impose First Past the Post for mayoral and police […]
Today’s election count for the Wiltshire Police and Crime Commissioner will be interesting. The Conservative candidate, Jonathon Seed, has stepped down because he has a conviction for drink driving which means he is barred from standing. We pick up the story from the Liberal Democrats, whose candidate Liz Webster will be at the count. If […]
Every day it becomes more obvious that our first past the post system is not fit for purpose, Around sixty percent of the electorate are unrepresented, disengaged, disenfranchised and disillusioned. We must have electoral reform. West Country Voices is hosting a Q&A session on this burning issue with a cracking panel drawn from campaign organisations […]
