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Ruth Hubbard @itsourcity1.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

Local 'democracy' (public scrutiny rights) going well in Sheffield then. From Private Eye this week....

Ruth Hubbard @itsourcity1.bsky.social · 21/04/2026

@miattafahnbulleh.bsky.social So very disappointing from u on Lords Amendment 36 of the English Devo Bill. Clear govt STILL refusing to engage with the basic Clause 59 issues, & provide answers. Even more so given yr otherwise championing of ‘community’. Only when it suits or serves I guess.

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Ruth Hubbard @itsourcity1.bsky.social · 16/04/2026

Lords vote 247-187 to remove Clause 59 from English Devo Bill - to retain the ability of all councils (& local people) to determine their local governance. A no to more govt centralisation - in a Bill claiming 'devolution' & 'empowerrment'! Briefing note: itsoursheffield.co.uk/abolish-clau...

itsoursheffield.co.uk

Abolish Clause 59 – Lords Amendment: Briefing Note - It's Our City Sheffield

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Simon Duffy @simonduffy.bsky.social · 13/04/2026

Great news - always a very weird evidence free ‘reform’

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Ruth Hubbard @itsourcity1.bsky.social · 13/04/2026

BREAKING House of Lords (Report Stage) just divided - voted 247 to 187 to remove Clause 59 from English Devo and Community Empowerment Bill. Would retain choice for all councils (& local people) to decide their governance model. That’s a big NO to govt over-reach, centralisation & imposition

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Josef Davies-Coates @josef.is · 11/02/2026

If you find @labouruk.bsky.social proposals to make refugees & other migrants wait 20+ years for permanent residence utterly abhorrent, please complete this consultation before 11:59pm on 12 February 2026: (it's quite long so don't start it with only 5mins to spare) www.gov.uk/government/c... 1/3

gov.uk

Earned settlement

The government is consulting on how the current settlement system should be reformed and how those reforms should be implemented.

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Natalie Bennett @nataliegreenpeer.bsky.social · 05/02/2026

From @politico.com We get the politics the few pay for. #democracy - it would be a good idea

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Dave Vetter @davidrvetter.bsky.social · 29/01/2026

The actual words of the current British Home Secretary: “My ultimate vision for that part of the criminal justice system was to achieve, by means of AI and technology, what Jeremy Bentham tried to do with his Panopticon. That is that the eyes of the State can be on you at all times."

hansard.parliament.uk

Crime and Policing Bill - Hansard - UK Parliament

Hansard record of the item : 'Crime and Policing Bill' on Tuesday 20 January 2026.

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Ruth Hubbard @itsourcity1.bsky.social · 27/01/2026

The House of Lords! Not without irony but thank God somewhere in the system is beginning to challenge a wretched English Devo & Community Empowerment Bill in basic *democratic* terms. The Bill - mostly classic 'democratic backsliding' - & gaslighting. parliamentlive.tv/Event/Index/...

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Ruth Hubbard @itsourcity1.bsky.social · 09/01/2026

Yes. If “Labour feels powerless” imagine what it‘s like for ‘ordinary people’! One (non) “vision” / “solution” is endless promotion of ridiculous “strong leader” governance (English Devo Bill is shot through with it & it’s part of steadily unpicking our democratic fabric, & rights too.) 🧵 1/2

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Ruth Hubbard @itsourcity1.bsky.social · 03/01/2026

Good job we've now got a top human rights lawyer as our PM.....

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Chaminda Jayanetti @cjayanetti.bsky.social · 02/01/2026

Just like the Tories, Labour's centrist hacks think themselves omniscient and infallible - they cannot fail, they can only be failed. So when they do fail, they blame everyone else. We saw it with the Tories, and it's already started from the Starmerites with this idiotic dreck: archive.ph/rHoXA

Times comment article byline: Paul Ovenden

Headline: Alaa Abd el-Fattah has shown the supremacy of the Stakeholder State

Strapline: My time working in No 10 showed me how much time and energy is sapped by people obsessed with fringe issues. It doesn't have to be this way

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Tamar but spooky @heartinamber.bsky.social · 02/01/2026

Every other opinion column in an English-language paper these days is just 'random Labour/Democrat apparatchik explicitly opposes the concept of civil society'

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Jonathan Portes @jdportes.bsky.social · 01/01/2026

I agree this is very much worth a read if you want to understand why this government has made such a mess of its first 18 months -if this is the caliber of thinking/analysis in No 10. Just deeply confused, paranoid word salad. (1/2).

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George Monbiot @georgemonbiot.bsky.social · 10/12/2025

There is one overriding political problem, from which all others follow. Until it is addressed, every policy advanced by governments is window dressing. www.theguardian.com/inequality/2...

theguardian.com

Just 0.001% hold three times the wealth of poorest half of humanity, report finds

Data from World Inequality Report also showed top 10% of income-earners earn more than the other 90%

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Academy of International Affairs NRW @aia-nrw.bsky.social · 10/12/2025

🏢Can cities save democracy? At our AIA panel in Bonn, Sanja Bojanić, Helfried Carl, János Kendernay, and Theresa Reymann agreed: cities are key to democratic culture, but the real power lies with citizens, not cities. Mayor Ursula Sautter closed the event. 🔗 www.aia-nrw.org/en/event-rep...

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Stan Oklobdzija @stano.bsky.social · 07/12/2025

This is absolutely correct. A constitution is every citizen's compact with the government, not some secret scroll that only members of a priest caste are allowed to access.

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Ruth Hubbard @itsourcity1.bsky.social · 20/11/2025

It's Our City! (Sheffield) public fb post on the govt (local governance) amendments to the (misnamed) English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill here: www.facebook.com/share/p/1CSn...

facebook.com

Redirecting...

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Ed Hammond @se13ed.bsky.social · 19/11/2025

A welcome climbdown from Government on the rights of existing councils to continue to operate the committee system form of governance. Government amendments today provide a way for some councils to continue to operate committees (for a while, anyway) - will write something more detailed later

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Zoe Gardner @zoejardiniere.bsky.social · 18/11/2025

Shabana Mahmood is wrong - Another cowardly attack on immigrants does not hide the incompetence of the Starmer government. Me, for the @newstatesman1913.bsky.social www.newstatesman.com/politics/uk-...

newstatesman.com

Shabana Mahmood is wrong

Another cowardly attack on immigrants does not hide the incompetence of the Starmer government

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David Fearn @davidfearn.bsky.social · 16/11/2025

Write to your (Labour) MP, now.

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Sunder Katwala (sundersays) @sundersays.bsky.social · 17/11/2025

The Sun has been told Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood will on Monday propose confiscating jewellery, watches, necklaces from asylum seekers to meet asylum costs This reflects the most controversial aspect of the Danish scheme - the Jewellery Law. The toughest Labour MPs thought this was OTT

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Tony Vaughan KC MP @tonyvaughanmp.bsky.social · 16/11/2025

The Prime Minister said in September that we are at a fork in the road. These asylum proposals suggest we have taken the wrong turning. The idea that recognised refugees need to be deported is wrong. www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025...

theguardian.com

Asylum system in UK ‘out of control’ and dividing country, home secretary says

Shabana Mahmood to unveil new proposals modelled on Denmark’s controversial system

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patthepublican2 @patthepublican2.bsky.social · 29/10/2025

The issue is not whether growth can save democracy. The issue is whether democracy can save us from the economic ideology that demands endless growth without ever meeting basic needs, which must be the absolute priority of every economy, especially if democracy is to be saved from the far right.

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Robert Saunders @robertsaunders.bsky.social · 29/10/2025

Democratic citizens shouldn’t just wait passively for governments to make decisions, then react to them. We have the privilege and responsibility to contribute to the public opinion that helps shape those decisions.

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Caroline Lucas @carolinelucas.bsky.social · 26/09/2025

Brilliant discussion with the fab @graceblakeley.substack.com on everything from growth to inequality, power & community organising, & how capitalism is actually a “system based on centralised planning & control rather than free markets”, where big biz is protected from consequences of failure👇

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Simon Duffy @simonduffy.bsky.social · 25/09/2025

Yesterday we published what I think will be a key document for @citizennetwork.bsky.social - a strategy to create neighbourhoods of care. Although I hope is that it will be adopted in South Yorkshire it will also encourage others to radically reimagine care. citizen-network.org/library/neig...

citizen-network.org

Citizen Network: Neighbourhoods of Care

A strategy to reorientate care policies to support citizenship and inclusive neighbourhoods.

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Ruth Hubbard @itsourcity1.bsky.social · 17/09/2025

Pushing power out of Westminster into hands of communities? U r joking. In Sheffield we took power as (diverse) communities 2 change our council. Now Clause 57 of the Bill will trash the referendum we won & top down impose the very governance system we rejected. Stop 57. www.itsoursheffield.org.uk

itsoursheffield.org.uk

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Ed Hammond @se13ed.bsky.social · 04/09/2025

You may have missed it (and I don't have a clip) but at the second reading of the Devo Bill Abtisam Mohamed MP (Sheffield Central) highlighted the inequity of Government's abolition of the cttee system... (1/2)

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Journal of Democracy @jodemocracy.bsky.social · 09/09/2025

Populism is a mortal threat to liberal democracy, but it rarely hits the mark. The evidence shows that these would-be strongmen require an extraordinary set of circumstances to succeed, which is why they so rarely do. muse.jhu.edu/pub/1/a...

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George Monbiot @georgemonbiot.bsky.social · 09/09/2025

Could we please stop pretending that the flags being hung from streetlamps or painted on roundabouts are innocent expressions of patriotic pride? This is the far right marking out its territory. It uses these flags to intimidate its traditional victims and opponents. 🧵1/3

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Ruth Hubbard @itsourcity1.bsky.social · 09/09/2025

So @se13ed.bsky.social this is a helluva lot of political ‘churn’ for a Bill to be subject to at this stage. What does the article below say please (paywall)?? 👇 www.room151.co.uk/funding/futu...

room151.co.uk

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Ruth Hubbard @itsourcity1.bsky.social · 09/09/2025

Of course councils (including local people) should hv the right and freedom to determine their own governance arrangements. Clause 57 is utterly incoherent in relation to what the govt claims it wants to do. (And their evidence-free, misinforming approach to this is bizarre and shameful.)

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Ed Hammond @se13ed.bsky.social · 09/09/2025

Arguably moving from the cttee system reopens that settlement, and time and effort will need to be expended understanding the wider impact there on local democracy. Similar considerations apply to Bristol and to a gtr or lesser extent to the other non-shire district cttee system authorities (6/)

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Ed Hammond @se13ed.bsky.social · 09/09/2025

For councils faced with this choice however they could (reasonably) think the costs they will incur will be higher. In Sheffield the adoption of the committee system was part of a wide "civic settlement" (my words!!) with local people following the street trees debacle. (5/)

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Ruth Hubbard @itsourcity1.bsky.social · 09/09/2025

Oh I think 'civic settlement' is probably an accurate phrase & others in #sheffield wld agree I think - given that our change to a cttee system involved the most significant citizen & community mobilisation for local governance change ever seen in England. Itsoursheffield.co.uk I will not....

itsoursheffield.co.uk

Home - It's Our City Sheffield

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Ruth Hubbard @itsourcity1.bsky.social · 06/09/2025

@allymcgovern.bsky.social congratulations on your appointment today. Basic local democracy - & Sheffield - now needs your help. Clause 57/English Devo Bill must go - madness & incoherent. In Sheff it will overturn our democratic decision in a city-wide referendum - & more. Pls support us.

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Ruth Hubbard @itsourcity1.bsky.social · 05/09/2025

@jimmcmahon.co.uk there is nothing that's not "fit, decent and legal" about Sheffield's committee system - in fact it's the only thing that is. A referendum won by the people of Sheffield & resoundingly for change. Now you want to break legal promises and take power away from local people.

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Ruth Hubbard @itsourcity1.bsky.social · 25/08/2025

#Sheffield - write to your MP to stop government overturning our democratic mandate in a city-wide referendum (ridiculous to be having to pursue this, but that’s where we are). All details here 👇👇 itsoursheffield.co.uk

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FIDE - Europe @europe.fidemocracy.org · 24/07/2025

📣 Hungry for democracy? The Democracy R&D 2025 programme is live – and it’s a full-course menu. Sessions are carefully tagged by purpose (inform, train, debate, solve, network) and spice level (mild to spicy). New or seasoned, there’s a seat at the table. 🍽️ drive.google.com/file/d/1TEgK...

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