Today is 4th May, we are deep into spring. This year’s county cricket season is three weeks’ old and Derbyshire is already languishing at the bottom of their group. Despite Covid-19, despite the Big Bash League, despite the razzamatazz of the Indian Premier League*, cricket remains the quintessential game of the English summer. The gentle […]
The vaccine environment is a complex mixture of commercial and political interests, investment in novel science and technologies, substantial commercial profit, collapsing national economies and geopolitical reputations in the context of the Covid-19 Pandemic. Thus creating ‘Vaccine Fog’.
In yet another ‘dialogue de sourds‘ with my MP, I recently emailed them about the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill (PCSCB) currently going through Parliament. As so often, the reply I received was deeply unsatisfactory. But more than unsatisfactory was their use of language. Distortion, deflection and (mis- or re) direction are employed to […]
Carrie Antoinette’s position at Conservative Campaign HQ (CCHQ) improved when, after eight weeks of cohabitation, she started having children. She became increasingly unpopular among the people, however, with the Liberal elite accusing her of being profligate and harbouring sympathies for England’s perceived enemies—particularly her Friends in Russia.
The European Super League is no more. Like the famous Norwegian Blue parrot, it’s bereft of life, expired and ceased to be. I’d like to imagine those behind it were thinking of it as a welcome and imaginative idea that would raise morale after a year of Covid lockdown. Instead, they were hit with a […]
In 1972, Pink Floyd recorded ‘Money’, a razor sharp satire about wealthy people. Fifty years on, the lyric “Think I’ll buy me a football team” has never been more current. This week, the birth and death of the planned European Super League (ESL) shone a spotlight on how the pursuit of wealth has corrupted the […]
Last time we brushed elbows with four of the West Midland’s top wealthiest as outlined by BirminghamLive’s Midland’s affiliated billionaires list. This week, we’ve got our eyes set on the final four in the hopes of helping them stop their billionaire hoarding ways. We now know what a billion pounds looks like. We’ve learned the […]
American presidents often like to use the first 100 days of their administrations to set the tone of their presidency. As we approach the 100th day of true Brexit (that is, the end of the so-called transition period, even if not all checks on imports are still being done), it seems reasonable to apply the […]
In this first of two articles, we focus on four of the West Midland’s wealthiest billionaires. What is a billion? At this point, it is important to put a billion pounds into perspective. I do not want to give the impression that anyone who earns a high figure salary or does well for themselves doesn’t […]
On Monday, Shirley Williams, the ‘undisputed godmother of the Liberal Democrats’, died at the age of ninety.
1951: Right to roam the countryside enshrined 2021: Rights under threat In 1951, the Peak District was the first area of the UK to be designated as a National Park; it lies primarily in Derbyshire, and therefore officially in the East Midlands. But walking here, you don’t feel in the ‘middle’ but ‘above’. Striding along […]
The post-Brexit transition period continues to hurt businesses across our region, with many losing orders and/or moving operations elsewhere to reduce the friction, costing our region future jobs and growth. In this new interview, we talk to Mark Lord of Aztec Oils, a specialist lubricant oil company based in Bolsover, Derbyshire, founded in 1995. It […]
On 27th March, the European Movement (UK) Conference took place, using a virtual platform to bring together thousands of delegates, activists and decision-makers to discuss key issues, three months on from Brexit. Kate Warsop, committee member for European Movement Derbyshire reports. Caroline Lucas opened the conference with a call to renew democracy and create a […]
A number of years ago, I shared a stage with designer Katharine Hamnett and journalist Miranda Sawyer, talking about cotton, the environment and greener alternatives. This was made possible by financing from the European Union’s DG Development, the type of funding that no British donor then did. Our job? Raising awareness among consumers and businesses […]
A blog post by a UK Government adviser, arguing there are ‘no reasons’ to believe an independent Scotland wouldn’t be economically successful, was deleted shortly after its publication on the LSE website on 30th March.
The Commitment is a rapidly growing organisation dedicated to putting climate change and biodiversity higher up the political agenda.
For decades, EU citizens had the right under EU free movement law to live their lives in the UK but now must ask for permission to continue to do so by applying to the EU Settlement Scheme. From today, they only have 90 days left until the application deadline of 30 June, after which many […]
In 2019, political processes and opposition seemed to have crashed. The idea of rebooting to counter the blue screen of death was born. Talks about a possible intervention began during the autumn of chaos 2019 when the Johnson/Cummings/Bannon/Alt-Right agenda became apparent. After the GE in 2019, things got serious. It was clear that the political […]
We used to dump convicts in Australia. Now Australia isn’t available, our Home Secretary first wanted to dump asylum-seekers on ship hulks. Now a remote island somewhere is favoured, where they can be neither seen, heard nor helped. So we’re going back hundreds of years!
For many of us, it is axiomatic that leaving the EU was a huge mistake that will damage our country and diminish our rights as citizens. Our future, we believe, must be as part of the EU so we can work together to address the very real and massive issues we face nationally and internationally. […]
Video 1 There are very few things I share in common with Brexiters but a weakness for harking back to the past may be one of them. I love steam railways, 1930’s songs and classic cars. Click on the video above for a nostalgic journey back into Britain’s lost empire. “Bye bye Britannia” was written […]