Dear Conservative backbenchers…

Under cover of both the pandemic and Brexit, the government has already given itself the ability to make laws with only nominal parliamentary involvement, in other words without asking you.
Under cover of both the pandemic and Brexit, the government has already given itself the ability to make laws with only nominal parliamentary involvement, in other words without asking you.
Mr Johnson hopes that “with a fair wind in our sails” the vaccination will have been offered to the top four priority groups by the end of the lockdown. Even his own words betray that the likelihood of this being achieved is frankly remote.
The members of the House of Lords now number more than 830. This is ridiculous. It’s supposed to be 600. Boris Johnson has been Prime Minister for twelve months and has appointed 52 new peers.
Photographs by Rob McDonald Photography, with permission. Living Advent Calendar: This year, the community of Harpur Hill, on the south side of Buxton, has created a living Advent calendar. Every evening during Advent at 6.30 pm, another house in the neighbourhood lights up a numbered window. Ours was number 8. People have put in a […]
The East Midlands is the very heart of England and from Glossop to Grimsby, from Boston to Brackley, every town celebrates Christmas in its own special way. This year, some cherished traditions have been put on hold (Melton Mowbray’s Christmas tree festival) while some new innovations have taken off (Leicester’s They Can’t Cancel Christmas short film). Here at […]
Jason Evans is the founder of the Factor 8 campaign group. His father died in 1993 when Jason was only four years old. For years, he has been trying to find out exactly what happened.
Unluckily for Gove, Covid-19 has not gone away and now irate Tories are demanding to know why the Nightingale hospitals aren’t being used. They are pointing out that he can hardly claim that the NHS is on its knees when the Nightingales are empty.
Life is a zero-sum game. If you win, someone else has to lose. That’s right, isn’t it? More to the point, if someone else wins then you lose. It’s certainly true sometimes.
While we wish Mr Anderson a speedy recovery, it does occur to us to wonder if perhaps he could take a little more care. The pictures in the press of his meeting with Johnson last week showed them standing close together with nary a mask between them.
Robert Jenrick, Secretary of State for Housing, comes under fire from the Public Accounts Committee and sinks yet more deeply into the quagmire of his politically motivated decisions.
In December 2019, Boris Johnson did not unleash ‘Britain’s potential’ but yet another of his interminable catchphrases. ’Levelling up’ appeared in the slimline Conservative election manifesto no less than eleven times.