The Bylines team was shown this list of MPs and their expenses: http://MPsAgainstFreeSchoolMeals.com It is a list of all MPs who voted against free school meals for children who need them, during school breaks. The vote took place in the House of Commons on 21 October during an opposition day debate. Nicky Morgan, now a […]
Police found Shayan Zal Dehnavi (24) dead on 7 September in a hotel room where the Home Office placed him after he arrived in the country and claimed asylum.
The accidental introduction of whisky to Uruguay following a shipwreck in the 18th Century shows how an accident can lead to opportunity and the establishment of a taste for whisky. HMS Agamemnon was a Royal Navy ship of the line with an armament of 64 guns. She was 160 feet long, 44 feet in the […]
Unless you have been living in a cave with no access to any news for the last few years, you will be aware that Britain has left the European Union (EU). Although it is difficult to find any Brexit bonuses at all, one that has been absent from the claims of even the most ardent […]
There are many unsung heroes of our National Health Service, both British and otherwise, who devote or have devoted their lives to medicine and saving lives. Do we take them for granted, especially those who come from overseas? After all that clapping with our neighbours, have we forgotten? East Midlands Bylines would like to hear […]
A few weeks ago I asked on Twitter, “Should we treat cars in the same way we treat cigarettes?” It produced some interesting comments such as: “We should limit the design of cars as we do tobacco packaging: small, grey boxes with a top speed of 40mph and a giant health warning”. “Marketing is making […]
CARE OF OLDER PEOPLE IN THE UK NEEDS URGENT CARE The way we care for older people, and the value society places on them and their carers, has become an ever-more urgent topic. The advent of Covid-19, prompting the discharge of older people to care homes without testing, that in turn led to tens of […]
These words were a comment made by a listener, Julia, in Radio 4’s In Touch programme for visually disabled viewers on August 25th. The topic was the supply security of sight-saving drugs and the risk Brexit disruption might pose to people’s health. Julia suffers from glaucoma and takes three lots of eye drops, all imported from […]
Cuts to local and regional media pare away our everyday culture and identity… One of the services people most valued during the lockdown was local and regional media. The friendly voices of BBC local radio, East Midlands Today, independent local and community radio stations, local newspapers and ‘live’ web-based news services all helped people cope […]
All of us must know someone who is an EU citizen living in the UK whether it is a family member, friend, colleague or neighbour. The latest Home Office EU Settlement Scheme statistics reveal that 4,600 people have been refused settled status while 1,475,500 have only been granted temporary ‘Pre-Settled Status’ and 212,400 are still […]
My love of badgers began when I was seven on finding a badger’s skull in a Derbyshire wood near my home. I could not have been more excited had I discovered a brontosaurus. In wonder, I stroked the large sagittal crest and carefully manipulated the non-detachable lower jaw. Immediately I felt a transcendental interconnectedness, an […]
If parenting is serious business, then single parenting in a lockdown is beyond serious… “Oh dear!” Meera lamented, staring at the wall clock and glancing quickly at the state of disarray in the living room. She had spent the entire afternoon assisting her two kids in their online lessons. Meera, a single mother and international […]
Local music festivals have a variety of talented artists from all genres of music depending on the particular festival’s target audience. Very often artists are happy to travel from far afield to places such as Hallaton in the East Midlands to perform to their fans. It is a fantastic privilege for me to be able […]
The Covid-19 pandemic has hit the country hard with the UK plunging into its deepest recession since records began. Each day, the media reports yet another, otherwise successful, business going bankrupt or announces large scale redundancies. Hopefully a vaccination will be available soon, but even so the economic impacts of Covid are being felt here […]
Covid-19 changed the world. What happens next will change our future and the time to act is now. At this moment, governments are drawing up investment plans on an extraordinary scale with billions of pounds expected to be pumped into reviving the economy. However, worldwide pleas of caution are being issued to governments not to […]
When Anne Sacoolas drove on ‘the wrong side of the road’ in sleepy, rural Northamptonshire, she was not expecting to kill anyone, but as the tragedy of Harry Dunn’s death shows, this is exactly what happened that fateful day in the summer of 2019. Since then there has been an extensive battle to try and […]
Why cinemas and other arts venues need their version of Eat Out to Help Out I love cinema. From occasional visits as a teenager (which needed careful planning because I lived in a rural village served by just a couple of buses a day), to retirement, when I can make a spontaneous decision to see […]
Forget traditional conservatives, socialists and liberals! We are in a new era now. The West is influencing the world with its liberal democracy, values and human rights far less than it once did and these aspects of freedom are being eroded at home too with regular attacks on democracy within the UK. Only the EU […]